“Shucks!” Alex. laughed. “I’ll have them walking on their heads, and walking the water at that. I wish I had a boat, so I wouldn’t have to swim to the island!”
“We’ve lost a rowboat every trip!” Jule exclaimed. “I wonder why we didn’t pick the one we had off the raft and fix it up. It wasn’t badly smashed.”
“We may find it yet,” Alex. said, hopefully. “We have come down just a little faster than the current, and so it is probably behind us. When it comes down we’ll get it and make it as good as new.”
“Yes, when we get it!” laughed Jule. “There’s a thousand people along the island beaches and mainland levees watching for boats! Just like these negroes are watching for anything at all that seems worth picking out of the water!”
“It won’t do any harm to keep a lookout for it,” Alex. decided. “Now,” he added, turning out the lights and throwing off his coat, “do you want to go to the shore with me? If you will go I’ll show you a race that will beat anything you ever saw.”
“And leave the boat alone?” demanded Jule. “I should say not. I’ll remain here and see that your retreat is properly covered. You’ll want some one here to hold a gun on the negroes you seem determined to stir up.”
“Now don’t get a grouch on,” pleaded Alex. “I’m doing this purely in the interest of science! I want to see how far the emancipation proclamation has relieved the negroes of the south from the old-time superstitions of the race! Not to put too fine a point upon it, kid, I want to see what a good healthy ghost will do to a lot of river thieves! Do you get me?”
“Going to play ghost, are you,” laughed Jule. “Then I’ll be a ghost, too!”
Alex. listened at the cabin door for a moment, but heard no sounds indicating the lack of sleep on the inside. Then he crept in, fumbled around in the darkness until he found two old bathing suits and a square package which smelled of sulphur.
“Now,” he explained to Jule, as he came out, “we’ll put on these bathing suits, so as to have dry clothes ready when we return from the island! You take a part of the matches, for we may become separated in the thicket. We won’t do the Mephisto act until we get to the island, then rub the sulphur on thick—on your hands and face.”