“That’s strange!” Case exclaimed. “She sees our lights, but what is she coming over to this side for?”
The mystery became more of a mystery still when, reaching the west side, the steamer turned prow up stream and started to breast the flood, still carrying great masses of wreckage down stream. She made her way up to the mouth of the bayou and stopped, her propellers going just fast enough to keep from dropping back.
“If I’m not mistaken,” Gregg suggested, “that is a boat carrying officers on a hunt for the escaped convicts. Can’t we get out of here before they reach us?”
“Why should we run away from them?” asked Clay, suspiciously.
“Because they will mistake us for convicts,” replied Gregg. “An officer in a position to abuse his authority always does so. Many of the man-hunters along the river are little better than the men they hunt. Some of them are worse. This, of course, does not apply to the sheriffs and deputies of the counties touching the river, but to hired detectives and gunmen who come here to make a living hunting others.”
“You must be sore on the police,” Alex. exploded. “I’ve got a lot of friends on the Chicago police force. They’re good fellows, at that!”
“All right!” Gregg assented. “There are a lot of good men there. But if you want to remain here and permit those ruffians to overrun your boat, insult you, and hold you prisoners until you can get to some town where identification is possible, you can do so. We can stand it if you can.”
“There may be some sense in what he says,” Clay urged, “and if we could get out of the trap we are in and make the propellers go, I’d be willing to go on down the river and let the officers have the whole country to themselves.”
“Can’t we follow this bayou current and get out on the river below them?” asked Jule.
Clay said no; Gregg and his chums said yes.