“Better put that gun down,” Alex advised. “You might get excited and let it go off.”
The man sat down on a fallen log and laid the gun across his knees.
“Where you boys from?” he asked.
The man’s voice and manner invited confidence, and the boys told him briefly the story of the Rambler, and of the shooting at the point where they had left her.
“I think you boys are all right,” the man said, and I think, too, that river pirates are making trouble for your friends.”
“Do you think they will follow us from the landing?” Case asked, anxiously. “They may shoot us from the bushes.”
The man pounded his thigh with one ponderous hand and laughed until the woods rang. The boys looked on in wonder.
“Follow you? I should say not,” he said in a moment. “Why that constable deputized me to come and take you prisoners. He’s helping old Bill barricade his store. Now we’ll see if we can find out what’s wrong with the Rambler.”
CHAPTER IV.—A DIVE FOR LIBERTY.
Left alone on board the Rambler, Jule lay for a long time behind the gunwale watching the Hawk. He saw Clay surrounded by a group of ill-looking fellows as soon as he gained the freight deck. He knew by the boy’s face that all was not going well.