“Get up,” Scoop shook them. “We’ve got a fight on our hands.”
“Who—who started the engine?” Red mumbled sleepily.
“That,” Scoop gritted, “is what we’re going to find out.”
The freckled one, now wide awake, went into a frightened panic.
“Oh!…” he gurgled. “Maybe it’s the—the ghost.”
Scoop grunted.
“The Strickers probably. Git a club, fellows. Here’s an extra one. Come on.”
Peg was directly behind the courageous leader, I came next, then Red. He was hanging to me and gurgling. In other adventures of ours I had seen him scared, but never anything like this. I could feel the thumping of his heart in his grip on my arm. Maybe, though, it was my own heart that I detected.
We tiptoed single file across the scow’s pit. It was still moonlight, but the silver light was of no aid to us in identifying the engineer who was running off with our boat, for the motor and tiller [[111]]were hidden from our sight by a hanging canvas that we had put up to keep the engine’s flying oil from spattering the clothing of our back-row customers.
That a steady hand was holding the tiller we could not doubt. For the scow was keeping its proper course. Yet, as we bent our ears we could detect no human sounds from behind the screen—there were no whispering voices or the scraping of feet on the wooden deck.