“I want him to go with us of course,” answered Clay. “I know Ike’s all right, but I was in hopes that my questions—about which you have been roasting me so—would clear up the things that had been puzzling me.”
“Ike might as well go as not,” Case agreed gloomily. “We always have to carry a nice fat mystery on each of our trips, and I’d rather Ike brought it along with him than to have some uninvited stranger smuggle it aboard.”
“You and Clay make me tired,” snapped Alex. “One of you is just as bad as the other. I guess I’ll have to call one of you Gloomy Gus 1, the other Gloomy Gus 2.”
“All right, you wait and see,” said Case darkly. “It’s only a nice gentle kitten-like mystery we start with on each trip, but before the trip is ended it grows to be as big as a grizzly bear.”
“That reminds me that one of us will have to bring Teddy Bear down to the boat. He’s getting pretty big but we must have him along with us for one more trip anyway.”
Teddy Bear was a grizzly cub the boys had captured on their trip on the Columbia. On their return from their last trip, they had turned him over to the zoo man as he had grown so big and had such a thieving appetite for sugar and other sweet things that they could not trust him in the Rambler while they were away at their work. Whenever they had a day of leisure, they would take Captain Joe along with them and go up to see their pet. They would put him through his tricks and slip him in a generous amount of sugar. So they kept themselves fresh in his memory. Teddy and Captain Joe were the greatest comrades and both rejoiced at these meetings. It was comical to see Captain Joe seated on his haunches, look up with one eye cocked as though saying, “Well, Old Chap, how are they treating you down here?” and Teddy Bear would with one eye wink back as though replying, “Pretty well, Joe, but it isn’t anything like life on the Rambler.”
Alex declared that he once heard Teddy tell Joe to sneak him down a pail of sugar the next time he came and Joe replied with vast scorn that he would not steal from his masters, but if Teddy had any good meat to exchange for sugar he’d manage it somehow. Clay, on hearing this story, had promptly placed Alex’s head down in an empty flour barrel until he confessed that he might have been mistaken.
When Clay spoke of bringing Teddy Bear down next day, Captain Joe arose in dignity from his corner and wabbled over to his side. Clay patted his head, “Yes, Joe, we are going to bring Teddy Bear tomorrow. Teddy Bear is going to stay on the boat now. You want Teddy Bear, Captain Joe?”
Captain Joe cocked his eyes and wagged his stump of a tail vigorously. He seemed to be saying, “I guess you’re talking straight, boss, but I don’t believe that guy’s going to leave all the good meat he’s getting if he can help it.” Captain Joe then rubbed his nose across Clay’s ankle, rose sedately, and made the rounds of the table rubbing his nose on each boy’s leg.
“He’s telling us that it is time to go to bed and stop disturbing his sleep with our chatter,” laughed Alex.