“Sure!” Alex. grinned. “Mud baths are healthful! There’s Mike Cogan, the Chicago politician, he goes to take mud baths twice a year! If we had him here now we wouldn’t charge him a cent for his cure! I think he’d like it, too.”
“I’ll wake Case and Jule, and we’ll get right at it,” Clay said. “I wish a lot of husky plantation hands would happen along in a shanty boat.”
“There was a group of them over on the Mississippi side last night,” Alex. explained. “We might get them, if they are there yet. Say,” he continued, with a grin, “I believe that is where the little coon went! He saw the camp-fire and heard the plantation songs, and couldn’t remain away from his own people!”
“In that case,” Clay suggested, “the little rascal will be back soon.”
“Never can tell about boys of the Mose stripe,” Alex. predicted. “He may follow the men off and never show up here again.”
Clay started for the cabin to arouse Case and Jule and then turned back to ask:
“Did that pocket book—the bag, rather, that had the diamonds in, make its appearance before or after Mose disappeared?”
“I don’t know when Mose lit out,” was the reply. “At one time I heard a splash in the river and looked to see what it was about, but Mose was not in sight then. There was only a large stick floating in the stream. Still, he might have gone at that time. If he did, he left long after the bag was thrown on deck. What about it?”
“I was thinking that he might have followed off the person who threw the bag,” Clay explained, “though I can’t understand why he should have gone away so secretly. Did the dog make any remarks about the time the bag reached the deck?”
“Nix on Captain Joe! He’s getting too sleepy! He stirred only once in the night, and that was when the boat was coming up to us. He frightened the pirates away, when Case and I had planned to shoot ’em up!”