“Look here,” Jule said. “We’ve been sowing rowboats over the world for a year or two. We lost two on the Amazon, one on the Columbia, two on the Colorado and had three smashed on the Mississippi. Now, I think we’d better go back and get this boat.”
“All right,” Alex grinned. “You go on back and get it.”
“Well, don’t you ever think I can’t,” Jule replied. “I can sneak up there and swipe that boat from under their noses. But you needn’t think I’m going to set out as long as there is anything here to eat.”
While the boys took breakfast, the situation as explained to Case by Fontenelle was described to them, and after a time Case beckoned Clay away to a corner of the cabin and asked him a question over which he had been puzzling ever since the arrival of Fontenelle.
“Now you understand the situation,” Case said, “and I want you to answer this question right off the handle. I’ve decided it half a dozen ways, but I have been fortunate enough so far to keep my mouth shut.”
“What is the question?” asked Clay.
“Wait,” Case said. “I’ll make a little explanation first. These Fontenelle people have only the legend of the lost channel and the loss of the charter and the family jewels in this section. They haven’t a single clew which tells them to look in any special spot first.
“So far as I can make out, young Fontenelle and his friends come down here every summer, in answer to the demands of the elder Fontenelle, for a sort of a vacation. So far as I can make out, they have never honestly searched for the lost channel. In fact, the young man has doubts of its existence. Now, what I want to know is this.”
“Why didn’t you say so before?” asked Clay with a smile. “I know what your question is. You want to know if we ought to show Fontenelle the map which was brought to the Rambler so mysteriously.”
“Aw, of course, you could guess it after I had stated the case fully,” Case declared. “But you haven’t told me what you think about it. Ought we to give Fontenelle the map?”