“We can get to our landing,” Sam insisted. “Once there, we can get into the bayou back of the island, where no one will think of looking for us. We must get the boat out of sight,” he went on, “before reports of her capture spread along the river. Besides, the boys will be waiting for us at the shanty.”
“All right,” Red finally agreed. “I’m willing to take my chance on being smashed flat by a tree or floating barn.”
Clay listened to the talk with interest. Somehow he began to recognize the voice of the big fellow! Where had he heard it before? Then, like a flash, the memory came to him! The man had talked with him from the river at Cairo! There is where he had heard the voice!
At that time the big fellow had been pleading for the safety of a waif who had come on board the Rambler! Both the man and the waif had disappeared when the officers had come on board. Clay wondered where the boy was, and why this outlaw had taken an interest in him. The man appeared to be kind, though his appearance and his modes of life were against him. It was all a deep mystery to the boy.
However, the giant’s defense of himself, when Sam would have mistreated and, perhaps, murdered him, led Clay to believe that he was not wholly depraved. There might be some powerful motive for his adopting the life of a river outlaw.
The boy resolved, at the first opportunity, to question Red regarding the fate of the lad who had so suddenly disappeared from the boat that night. He now saw that the willingness of his companions and himself to aid the waif had led to good results, for it was this willingness which had undoubtedly caused the giant to stand between him and injury or even death. His little loaf of bread cast on the waters had returned to good purpose!
Sam seized the pole, as soon as Red agreed to his proposition to make their way down the river without delay, and began working the Rambler out into the current.
“Better wait until that mess of wreckage passes!” Red advised, as a crush of floating timbers made its appearance under the moonlight. “If we get into that bunch we’ll never get out again. It will go by in a few moments.”
Sam stood looking at the mass with a frown on his sullen face. He was anxious to be away for more reasons than one. The boat had undoubtedly been reported seized long before this, and every craft passing up or down would soon be looking for her. His idea was that the lads who had left the boat would soon return and report the disappearance.
He did not know, of course, that Case was at New Madrid, or on the way there, when they had attacked Clay, nor did he suspect that Alex. and Jule had fallen into the hands of a band of bandits in every way as desperate and unscrupulous as that to which he belonged.