“I’ll have you all arrested!” shouted the other. “I want my boat.”
“Sing it!” chuckled Alex. “You might make a fine song with that ‘I want my boat’ story of yours. Have you looked along the river bank for it? The boy might have left it there.”
“I have not,” was the reply. “It is up to you to return it, and not my place to look for it. That boat was worth $50 of any man’s money.”
“Will you wait a moment, please?” Case asked of the boatman, as he drew Alex to one side. “I may want to go to shore with you before long.”
The other nodded and stood angrily in his boat, waiting.
“Now,” Case explained to Alex, “there is no need of making an enemy of this man with your impudent talk. He is probably right. Some one swam out here, had supper, swam back and got a boat, and took Clay to the shore. Now, who could it have been? This beats me?”
“Couldn’t have been Don, could it?” asked Alex, doubtfully.
“I’m all at sea,” Case replied. “I don’t understand how Don could have got up to Yuma, and yet I’m half inclined to believe that it was he who took the money, though why he should have done so without letting us know is more than I can figure out.”
“There’s no head or tail to this business,” Alex declared. “We’re all mixed up with other folks’ troubles, just as we were on the Amazon and Columbia river trips! Are you going ashore with this man?”
“Of course. I’ve got to find out, if I can, where Clay went.”