“Take a swim, Teddy!” he shouted to the bear, giving him a push with one foot. “Take a run and jump into the river. Get busy now!”
The cub had often heard these words. When the boys were ready for a river bath Teddy was usually ready, too, and he was always addressed in the words Case used now, or some almost exactly like them.
So the bear, thinking, doubtless, that a new game was on, gave one parting snap at the fellow’s leg and went headfirst into the river. Case tripped the man who ran to the railing with a revolver in his hand, and was rewarded by a violent blow on the head.
“Coming! Coming, Teddy! Get a move on!” Case called out to the bear, and it was with a good deal of satisfaction that he heard the intelligent animal snorting with the race spirit as he made clumsily for the shore. Doubtless the bear wondered why Case was not at his heels on this, as on other occasions, but he kept on swimming and so escaped death.
Dazed as he was by the blow he had received, Case heard the fellow shooting at Teddy, and heard Clay and Don arguing with the men who were the cause of the commotion in the cabin.
“Come!” the boy heard a hoarse voice saying, “we have no time to lose. “You boys went to a bank at Yuma to-day and drew out a lot of money and a package of government bonds. We want them! Produce!”
“You are mistaken,” Clay replied, his voice sounding harsh and strained, as if he was just out of a struggle. “We put our money in the bank, and the bonds in the bank. We drew nothing out. Take what I have in my pocket and go. There’s nothing else here for you.”
Case heard one of the men rattling the coal stove, and a shudder of horror went through him. Would the midnight raiders be brutal enough to resort to torture? He had heard of terrible, inhuman things that river pirates had done. He tried to get up, but was held fast.
“Here!” a voice in the cabin said. “Don’t wait to heat up that old stove! Just turn the electric current on this coil. That will prevent his going to bed with cold feet to-night!”
“He is telling the truth about the money and bonds,” Case said to his captor. “They were left in the bank at Yuma, and he gave another lad money enough to get to Chicago, so we're about broke.”