“Oh, no!” Pepper tried to pull free, then leaned against the side of the car and clung there like a half-drowned monkey. “Red’s best boss a man ever had. He’s ... he’s wonderful.... Likes good music ... dogs ... Indians. I’d die for Red.”
“That’s the point.” Ralph rummaged in the back of the jeep, found Maisie’s mangy hide, and wrapped it around the shivering boy. “You almost did die. Cavanaugh’s next door to a murderer.”
Pepper stared at them as if he were waking from a dream.
“You really believe that, Sandy?” he gulped weakly.
“I know it, Pepper.” Torn between pity and anger, Sandy gripped the blond boy’s arm. “Cavanaugh’s a crook!”
“Crook?” Pepper babbled. “No, no!” His knees sagged and they just managed to catch him as he fell.
“A strange boy,” said Ralph as they drove back to camp with the would-be Viking sleeping the sleep of exhaustion between them. “He’s in trouble, some way. Maybe he was trying to prove himself, like young Indians once did before they could become braves.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Serendipity
Pepper was black, blue, stiff and somewhat chastened when he ate breakfast with Ralph and Sandy the next morning. Also, he was disturbed by the fact that Cavanaugh’s plane had come over at dawn, circled the wrecked barge in the rapids for several minutes, and then scooted eastward without landing.
“He must have known I planned to run the river,” the blond boy admitted. “But why do you suppose he didn’t stop to ask whether you folks had seen me?”