“Say, Mr. Cop, you’ve seen terriers go after a rat in a pit, haven’t you?” asked Case. “Well, that’s just the way that gang went after us. We’d be dead now if Captain Joe hadn’t run away from the Rambler and followed us.”
“There!” cried the officer clapping Alex on the back, “I’ve been trying to think of that name ever since I saw the dog. We’ve got pictures of this dog and the Rambler and a grizzly bear called Teddy pasted up in the squad room. We cut them out of newspapers six months ago when you boys were somewhere out on the Columbia river.”
“On the Colorado river,” corrected Case. “We found Teddy Bear in a a timber wreck on the Columbia, and he never had his picture taken until we got to San Francisco.”
“Is the Rambler down on the river now?” asked the officer, and Case nodded. “Because, if it is,” the policeman went on, “some one had better be getting down there! The wharf rats will eat it up before morning, plank by plank!”
“How are we going to get down there if you lock us up?” asked Case.
“You may not be locked up,” was the reply.
[CHAPTER X—THE MENAGERIE IN ACTION]
After the departure of Alex and Case from the Rambler, Clay and Jule drew out the two mysterious messages they had received and studied them over carefully.
“What do you think about this lost channel proposition?” asked Jule.
“If a channel ever went through the neck of land as shown by the map, that section must have been visited by an earthquake,” Clay laughed. “There isn’t a sign of a channel there. Instead, there’s a great high ledge of rock crossing the peninsula, just where the line shows the channel ought to be. It is my private opinion that no water ever crossed that peninsula. There must be some mistake in location.”