There was also another passenger on board the Rambler whose name did not appear on the crew list. This was Teddy, the quarter-grown grizzly bear which Alex had rescued from a floating tree in the Columbia river, near the source of that wonderful stream.
The bear and the dog were very good friends, playing together like kittens. During their many river trips the boys had taught the bear to box, wrestle and frisk about in the water. Captain Joe was always ready for a tussle with the bear, and had a habit of following Alex surreptitiously every time the boy left the boat.
The Rambler was well supplied with provisions and ammunition of all kinds, but, the supply of gasoline running low, the tanks being well-nigh empty, and the spark plug badly worn, the boys had proposed early in the day to merely drift down the river, keeping headway with the sweep.
But a little experience of this mode of traveling on the great stream had caused them to tie up in an eddy on the Kentucky side. It was September, and the Ohio was alive with traffic of all kinds.
During the early part of the day they had passed several excursion boats, gay with flags and music, almost a fleet of shanty-boats, and innumerable packets, stern-wheelers and side-wheelers. Drifting with no control to speak of, the Rambler had several times come very near collision with larger boats.
On the Ohio, as well as on the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, the traffic-men seem to have a great contempt for those who go about in gasoline boats. Captains and pilots unite in making trouble for the owners of such craft whenever it is possible to do so.
Once that forenoon the Rambler had come very near destruction because of a monstrous tow of coal barges moving down upon it. Later, the boys had been annoyed and insulted by a gang of toughs who were lounging over the railing of a whiskey boat which was passing up the river.
It was finally arranged that Alex and Case should go ashore and look about for a place where supplies might be purchased. There were no settlements in sight from the point where the Rambler lay, but the boys thought that, as she lay just above a great bend which swept around a long peninsula, turning to the south at last, there might be business places not far away which were not in view.
“And while you are gone,” Jule called out as the boys rowed ashore, “catch a coon and half a dozen squirrels. I can make a squirrel pie that will bring Captain Joe down from Chicago!”
“All right!” Alex called back. “We’ll bring game enough to last a week. Get your fires all ready by dark.”