“And there’s something moving on it!” Jule shouted. “It looks like a baby!”
Alex. was busy with his line. The fish supper was almost in sight! If he heard what was said to him he did not heed the warning, for he kept on playing his fish, which seemed inclined to take the rowboat down the river to the Gulf of Mexico!
The piece of roof to which the boys pointed swung around the side of the Rambler and was pulled in toward the shore by the eddy which had drawn so many lesser objects in. Then, for the first time, Alex. saw his danger. If the mass struck the boat it might crush it. At the very least it would be likely to break the line with which it was attached to the Rambler and send him adrift!
The boy seized the cable and began to draw the boat up to the Rambler, seeking protection under its bulk. Then he heard a cry come from the raft, and saw a mite of a boy reaching out his hands. The boat dropped back and the mass, edging in below the Rambler, struck it full on the prow!
[CHAPTER III—A WAIF FROM THE RIVER]
The cable tying the rowboat to the Rambler parted with a snap as the wreckage struck the light craft, and Alex. went rocking and bobbing down toward the Gulf of Mexico! The boys on the Rambler saw him get out an oar to secure steerway, though he was pressed on by the house roof which had done the mischief.
It was not a flat roof, but one with two steep sides and a sharp apex. It rode the current apex up, as if floating on a floor crossing under the eaves. On the top of the ridge-boards, clinging on with hands and bare heels, and shouting fit to wake the people of Cairo, the lads on the Rambler saw a half-dressed negro boy of perhaps ten or eleven years. The more the roof bobbed on the waves the louder he yelled.
When the line snapped Clay rushed to the motors and turned on full power. The Rambler trembled as she thrust her nose against the current, wavered, and then, answering her helm, swung around broadside to the sweep of water, shook a mass of wreckage from her prow, as a dog shakes off water, and edged down stream.
In a minute after the accident the powerful motor boat was chasing Alex., the little negro boy, and the teetering roof down toward Memphis! It was dark on the river, and the roaring of the waters made the prospect doubly disagreeable. The current was running fast, and that one minute of getting under way had swept the rowboat some distance down stream. Still it was just visible under the strong prow light.
“There’s Alex.’s fish!” shouted Chase, pointing to the cowering negro boy on the apex of the roof. “Wonder how he wants him cooked for supper?”