“No,” Case answered, “nothing will put that light out until the battery becomes exhausted. That is, unless you break the lamp.”
The boys were just starting on again when the long terrifying baying of a hound came to their ears. The dog was still a long distance off, yet even as they listened his great voice came more distinctly through the darkness.
“There!” Hank said in a disgusted tone of voice, “they’ve gone and done it at last! It’s just this way, boys,” he went on, “when you left that old skinflint of a merchant back there, you were two little boys sent out by a river pirate to see if the town was worth plundering. Ten minutes after your departure, you were two river pirates, armed to the teeth and half drunk on moonshine whiskey. Thirty minutes after you left, they were saying that the town had been visited by a band of pirates armed with cannons. By to-morrow morning, they will have the town pillaged and burned. I never did see the way people exaggerate things.”
“But where did they get that hound?” asked Alex. “There wasn’t any there when we were there.”
“They might have got one off of the Government boat,” Hank answered.
“But there wasn’t any Government boat,” Alex insisted.
“There was one just coming up the river,” said the mountaineer. “If we ever come to the bank of the stream we’ll see her pass up.”
“Well, what are we going to do about the dog?” Case asked. “He’s evidently out of leash, for, judging from the sound of his voice, he’s running faster than any man could navigate through the woods.”
“Yes, he does seem to be out of leash,” the mountaineer answered, “and it may be that he took up the scent on his own hook. Still, the Federals do have bloodhounds to aid in trailing the moonshiners.”
“Isn’t there any way to get away from the brute?” asked Case. “If we don’t, he’ll tree us and set up such a howling that the men will be thicker than bees around us in about an hour.”