“I fully believe,” Case grunted, as he finally left the cabin and looked out upon the dim river from the deck, “that if we should fly through the air on a cloud there would be some scamp watching us from another cloud! It’s rotten, the way we are chased about!”
The boy did not know that his complaint had found words until he heard a chuckle close to his side and turned about to faintly distinguish the freckled face of Alex., who stood looking over the river to the south.
“You’ve got no kick coming!” Alex. declared. “You wouldn’t go on these river trips if we found nothing more than scenery, any more than I would! It seems like living to be chased about, as you call it! If it wasn’t for the mystery and adventure in the jaunts I’d be at home in little old Chicago—and that’s where you’d be, too!”
“Well,” Case returned, “I’d like to get one night off occasionally!”
“What is it now?” asked Alex. “I heard the steamer pass, but that didn’t mean anything to me. What’s going wrong now? Tell your old uncle Alex. all about it!”
“Uncle nothing!” laughed Case, restored to better humor by the optimism of the other. “If you want to know what’s on the string, go and get a glass and try to find a rowboat in this mess of river and black sky. A safety razor that won’t cut air will be given to the first one that discovers the boat!”
“Oh!” cried Alex. “There’s a boat watching us! All right! Now I feel better! I was beginning to wonder when we’d have something to stir us up!”
“The boat dropped off when the steamer went up,” Case explained. “I saw it under the lights, but of course it vanished in the darkness as soon as the big boat passed.”
“There’s something going on, then!” Alex. declared. “Of course they wouldn’t know on board the steamer in the dark, that we were here, and so the thing which is going to happen is set to come off on shore. I’m going to stay awake and see what it is.”
“You see,” Case stated, hesitatingly, “I heard a bump on the hull of the Rambler, just as the steamer was churning into sight, around that bend, and turned on the prow light to see about it! That’s why the rowboat dropped off here, I take it.”