Given a clear stretch of water, the Rambler would soon have been out of sight of the steamer, but on turning a bend, a monster coal tow came into view. There were rows on rows of barges heaped high with coal, all headed for the Mississippi. In the rear was a gamey tug swinging from side to side in order to keep the fleet under control.
“Now we are up against it!” exclaimed Clay. “We never can get by those barges!”
“How do the steamers get by?” asked Jule.
“They don’t get by at all when the coal tow is passing around a narrow bend like that!” was the answer.
“Well, what are we going to do?” Alex asked. “Let those fellows come on board here and eat us up?”
“If there weren’t so many people on board that saloon boat,” Case declared, “I’d dynamite it. She ought to be blown out of the water, anyway. We can’t be bothered all the way down with these whiskey boats!”
“We shall be if we don’t make a record in some way!” Clay said. “I move we run into the little creek there on the Indiana shore and shoot if they come near us.”
“Say!” Alex said in a moment. “That isn’t a creek at all. Don’t you see that the main river is on the other side of it? That’s a big island with a lagoon in the middle, and an opening on the upper end.”
“That’s not the main river on the other side!” Case observed. “It is wide, but it looks shallow. If it was the main river, we could pass through there and so get in ahead of the coal tow.”
“Well, then, suppose we run into the lagoon,” suggested Alex.