“That’s a good idea!” Ball declared. “We don’t mean any harm to these boys, but we certainly must keep track of them until they get out of the country. If their friends come back here and seem to be all right, we’ll pack them all off in their own boat, and wish them good luck on their trip down the river. We can’t be too careful, you know.”
The plan mapped out in this conversation was carried out. Case and Jule were marched to the farm house where Clay had taken his breakfast and locked up in a room guarded by the motherly old lady who had been so kind to Clay. Dismayed but not disheartened at the sudden change of fortune, the boys sat down on rude chairs in their not very secure prison and regarded each other with humorous glances.
“And when we wake up,” Jule mocked, “well see the Rambler riding in the cove and Alex cooking a catfish a la Indian at the fire! If I couldn’t get things any straighter than you can, Case, I’d certainly go out of the prophet business! As a forecaster of future events, you’re about as big a frost as the weather department of the United States Government! What does all this mean, anyway?”
“You can search me,” Case answered a little sourly. “I don’ know whether we’re under arrest, or whether we’ve been snatched up by a choice collection of river pirates, or stored away for ransom by whitecaps.”
“The leading impression in my mind, if you want to know,” Jule announced, “isn’t in my mind at all; it’s in my stomach!”
“You’re always hungry!” laughed Case.
“Hungry!” repeated Jule. “The word hunger doesn’t express it. I wonder if the old lady will give us something to eat.”
“And indeed I will!” cried a feminine voice from the other side of the door. “Sure I will, boys! Somehow it seems to be raining boys on this ’tarnal old farm this morning!”
“Let us out,” Clay suggested, “and we’ll help you get something to eat. You’ll want water or wood to be brought, or something of that kind. We won’t run away.”
“I reckon my old batter pail will be empty if any more hungry lads come up from the river,” Mrs. Peck went on, opening the door.