CHAPTER VII
SEARCHING FOR THE _RAMBLER_
Case found the walking fairly good and reached New Madrid shortlybefore noon, having started about 8 o'clock. He procured the suppliesfor which he had been sent and then sought the hotel and partook of anexcellent dinner.
"Now," he thought, "shall I walk back to the _Rambler_ to-night, orshall I remain here and look over the town?"
The question was soon decided, for all there was of the town could beseen in a very short time. At 1 o'clock he started back to the motorboat. At 5 o'clock, just as the sun was setting, he came to the bayouwhere the _Rambler_ had been anchored.
There was no boat there. The night was falling fast, and the bayou andthe river were dimly seen through a slight mist. The boy stood on thebank of the bayou for a long time, studying the situation.
"There's something wrong!" he decided. "The motors could never havebeen forced into motion with the parts missing! The boys would neverattempt to drift down, for the river is still filled with driftingtimbers and wrecks of houses and barns.
"And even if they should have decided to change locations,notwithstanding the peril of the undertaking, they would never havegone away without leaving some one here to notify me of the newposition!"
Passing on up the bank of the bayou, searching for some sign in thedarkness, Case finally came upon the rowboat which Alex. and Jule hadleft half concealed in a tangle of bushes in a little bay. Before him,then, lay the old house, dim in the night. He had heard the boys talkof visiting the place, and at once concluded that they were there.
He looked over the structure for lights, but saw none. Then helistened, catching in time the sounds which the two boys had noted. Hecrouched down in a patch of shrubbery and waited, listening for someindication of the presence of his chums.
Directly he heard a shrill scream of fright, then the bushes betweenhis hiding-place and the house were shaken violently, and a smallfigure darted out, running at top speed and sending a scream into thenight at every jump!
"If that isn't Mose," Case thought, "then there are two young negroeswith most extraordinary calliope possibilities! He runs like the OldScratch was after him, and has plenty of wind left to tell how scaredhe is!" he added.
The small figure came smashing through the shrubbery and finallylanded in the thicket where Case had secreted himself. Here hestumbled over a trailing vine and fell forward on his face. Before hecould regain his feet Case had him by the arm.
"Mose!" he said. "Keep quiet! You'll have all the pirates in the statesteering in this direction! What is the matter?"
"Fo' de Lawd's sake leave dis nigger go!" wailed Mose. "Dar's ghostesin dat ol' house, an' dey's got de boys!"
"Are the boys in there?" demanded Case, giving the frightened lad agentle shake to bring him back to his senses. "Where is the_Rambler_?"
"Ah don' know!" gasped the little negro. "Piruts don' got de boat, an'dem ghostes don' 'pear fo' dis nigger!"
"If you don't brace up and tell me what's going on," Case declared,"I'll throw you in the river. Where are the boys?"
Before Mose could reply Captain Joe came dashing through the bushes.He stopped by Case's side and lay down, trembling with excitement.
"If the dog could talk he would tell me what's going on," Case said,reprovingly, to the negro. "Where have you two been?"
Mose, evidently encouraged by the presence of the dog, told haltinglyof the attack on the _Rambler_ that morning, of his being thrownoverboard, with the dog, of his day of wandering, hungry and afraid,about the old place, and of Captain Joe following the tracks of theboys to the entrance to the house.
He said that he had lain in hiding, afraid to enter, and had kept thedog quiet until it began to get dark, when he had followed Captain Joeto a window from which the sound of voices had issued. The dog hadleaped in, after he had pulled away the rotten board, he said, andthere he had seen Alex. and Jule, enveloped in a ghostly light, with awhite ghost struggling with the dog!
The story was told with many sidelong glances at the shadows which layheavy on the landscape, for a moon was now struggling through driftingbanks of clouds.
As the boy concluded his story, often delayed by his fright, anothercommotion came from the grounds nearer the old house. Lights flashedfrom the windows and pistol shots were heard. Getting one sniff of theacrid smell of powder, Mose leaped to his feet and bounded away again.Captain Joe lifted his nose, wrinkled it in derision, and rose to meettwo figures which were pounding down the broken walk toward the bayou.
"Alex.! Jule!" called Case. "What's doing?"
"Get a move on!" panted Alex. "Get to the boat! Where did that littlecoon go?"
"He must be somewhere near the Rocky Mountains by this time," Casereplied, falling into the fast pace set by the other boys.
Very soon there were sounds of running feet behind them, and the ladsredoubled their efforts to reach the boat before any one else couldget to it. Now and then a bullet cut the air close to their ears, butthey were not struck.
When they came to the edge of the bayou, Mose had the boat out a rodfrom shore, and was doing his best to row it across with one oar. Theboys did not wait for him to return to the bank, but plunged into thewater and waded and swam out, Alex., the last one in, giving the crafta vigorous shove as he crawled over the stern.
Without loss of a minute's time Alex. and Case took the oars and Juleseized the helm. They were soon proceeding down the bayou at a rapidrate of speed, but, fast as they were going, others were moving fasteralong the bank.
"Come back or we'll fill you full of air holes!" shouted one of thepursuers.
The boys might have been forced to return to the shore only for thefact that at that moment the moon's face was hidden by a mass ofclouds. Taking advantage of this, and sitting as low in the boat aspossible in order to avoid the bullets which were coming in theirdirection, the boys made for the mouth of the blind channel, and soonfelt the push of the current of the Mississippi.
Before long the sounds of pursuit died out. The old mansion, whichstood on the point of land between the river and the bayou, was now indarkness. When the moon came out again it stood silent and solitary inits neglected enclosure. It seemed to the lads that everything thathad taken place there must be a dream!
"Now where?" Jule asked, as the boat passed a bend and the house wasno longer in sight. "Do we know where we are going, any of us?"
"Where is the _Rambler_?" demanded Alex. "We ought to have reached itlong ago."
Then, briefly, Case repeated the story told by Mose of the capture ofthe motor boat. There was silence for a moment, for the boysrecognized the seriousness of the situation.
There was little doubt in their minds that the _Rambler_ would bewrecked. No boat could drift down that surging river, cluttered withdriftwood as it was, without meeting with disaster. And Clay was onboard, bound, and helpless in case the worst happened!
"So that is how Mose and Captain Joe happened to come to the rescue,"Alex. said. "The pirate threw them off the _Rambler_! Well, he did agood job when he did it, anyway! But how that coon did run when wemade for the window he had opened!"
Mose, nestled in the bottom of the boat, stroking Captain Joe's wethead, grinned and declared that the boys had looked like ghosts.
"It is a wonder the boy and the dog were not discovered in thegrounds!" Jule remarked. "I don't see how they came to keep out ofsight!"
"I can tell you!" Case put in. "Mose was so afraid that the pirateswould come and get him that he lay in the bushes with his face in thedead leaves! Is that right, Mose?" he asked.
Mose had to admit that he was "sho' scared white," and Captain Joetried to explain, in perfectly good dog talk, that he wasn'tfrightened a bit, but only lay by Mose to help keep his courage up!
"Well, boys," Alex. said in a moment, "we've got to study out someplan to get to Clay. We can't dodge the issue by talking of somethingelse. What shall we do?"
"I'm for going on down the river," Alex. continued.
"The pirates can'trun the _Rambler_ up stream, and so we must find her if we keep ongoing."
"But she has nearly ten hours the start of us," urged Jule.
"I don't think they will go far, as it is risky drifting a boat downnow. They will probably go far enough to get out of the zone ofpursuit and then tie up, if the boat isn't wrecked before that," headded, gravely.
"That's good judgment!" Case declared.
"We're lucky if we don't get wrecked ourselves," Jule declared,swinging the boat about to avoid a mass of wreckage which lay beforeher. "When we come to the bend just ahead we're likely to be pushedover to the other shore. See how the current sets that way? We'll haveto go some to beat it!"
The current was indeed swift and treacherous. It swept toward the eastshore with almost resistless force, and the rowboat was like aneggshell in its grasp.
"Look out for the log ahead!" cried Jule, as the boat swirled around.
But there was more than one log ahead. It seemed that a whole drive oflogs, or timbers, had been caught by the flood and whirled downstream. The boys backed water, and Jule did all he could to keep outof the mass, but the current was remorseless.
The boat struck a great timber and the force of the shock and thecracking sound which followed told of an injury to the craft. Mosestood up in the boat, for water was now coming in!
"This seems to be our good-luck night!" Case grumbled, in a sarcastictone, as the boat lurched against a great log and came near tippingover.
"There's a raft ahead, anyway!" shouted Jule. "We can ride down onthat!"
"Until it takes a notion to dump us into the drink!" complained Case.
The boat filled fast, and Captain Joe mounted the prow and lookedlongingly toward the bobbing timber raft just ahead. From the raft helooked back to the boys.
"I reckon the dog has more sense than we have!" Alex. exclaimed."We'll have to take to the raft, all right, so here goes."
"Wait for a bit of light!" urged Case. "The moon will be out in asecond."
In the darkness which followed the boys could feel the water rising inthe boat. The current was pressing the craft down against the timberraft, and the creaking of the hull proclaimed a badly wrecked boat.
"Say," Case called out, "one of you boys get out a light. We've got tomake a jump right soon. This is some adventure! What?"
Jule reached for his electric, but Alex. caught his arm.
"There's a light on the Missouri bank," he said, "and it looks to melike the cabin windows of the _Rambler_ were sending it out. Lay lowin the dark and drift with the raft!"