Then Clay told of the boy’s appearance on the Rambler, referring also to the fact that he had been accompanied, apparently, by men who sought to seize the Rambler after it had been beached.
“And Fontenelle claims that these men were not river pirates at all,” Clay went on, “but says they are ruffians sent out to prevent his making a thorough search of the district where his father believes the lost channel to have been. In that case, this boy Max might in some way be connected with the enemies of the Fontenelles.”
“That is very true,” answered the chief, “and I’ll keep my eye on him after this, although I don’t take much stock in this lost charter business, at all.”
After a pleasant hour the chief shook hands with the boys and departed. Then the Rambler was headed upstream again. The boys had had enough of Quebec during that one night.
Thirty miles or more up the St. Lawrence from Quebec, the Jacques Cartier river enters the St. Lawrence from the north. The boys sighted the mouth of the stream just before twelve o’clock. At the same moment they saw a river steamer coming down toward them. The steamer was large for one plying above Quebec, and, fearing that the wash from her propeller would make trouble for the Rambler, they edged over to the mouth of the entering stream, in front of which lay a great, partly submerged sand bar.
The steamer came down, whistling and ringing, and the boys signaled for her to pass off to the right. Apparently scornful of so small a craft, the pilot kept her headed directly down stream in a course which would have brought about a collision with the motor boat.
The boys swung away toward the sand bar, trusting to good luck to keep them clear of it.
Just as she came opposite the bar, the helmsman of the steamer did what he should have done before, turned the prow sharply to the south. A wall of water from the stern of the boat came sweeping down upon the Rambler.
It caught her broadside, and in an instant she was beached high and dry on the bar, lying with her keel exposed and the furniture and fixtures in the cabin and store rooms rattling about like hailstones in a blizzard.
Tumbling heels over head, catching at the gunwale, scrambling away so as to be beyond reach of the boat if she should go over farther, the four boys, the bulldog and the bear brought up on the hot, dry sand.