Part 21 (2/2)
”We ought to have provided against this,” Clay exclaimed, in self-reproach. ”We might just as well have anch.o.r.ed a few yards farther down. What next, I wonder?”
”The longer we wait before getting the motor boat into the water,”
Alex. said, ”the harder work it will be, for the river is lowering every minute.”
Clay scratched his head and estimated the distance to deep water.
”We'll have to put on our bathing suits and take to the mud,” he decided. ”By all taking hold, we may be able to get her out of this mess. Nice job it is, too!”
”Sure!” Alex. grinned. ”Mud baths are healthful! There's Mike Cogan, the Chicago politician, he goes to take mud baths twice a year! If we had him here now we wouldn't charge him a cent for his cure! I think he'd like it, too.”
”I'll wake Case and Jule, and we'll get right at it,” Clay said. ”I wish a lot of husky plantation hands would happen along in a shanty boat.”
”There was a group of them over on the Mississippi side last night,”
Alex. explained. ”We might get them, if they are there yet. Say,” he continued, with a grin, ”I believe that is where the little c.o.o.n went!
He saw the camp-fire and heard the plantation songs, and couldn't remain away from his own people!”
”In that case,” Clay suggested, ”the little rascal will be back soon.”
”Never can tell about boys of the Mose stripe,” Alex. predicted. ”He may follow the men off and never show up here again.”
Clay started for the cabin to arouse Case and Jule and then turned back to ask:
”Did that pocket book--the bag, rather, that had the diamonds in, make its appearance before or after Mose disappeared?”
”I don't know when Mose lit out,” was the reply. ”At one time I heard a splash in the river and looked to see what it was about, but Mose was not in sight then. There was only a large stick floating in the stream. Still, he might have gone at that time. If he did, he left long after the bag was thrown on deck. What about it?”
”I was thinking that he might have followed off the person who threw the bag,” Clay explained, ”though I can't understand why he should have gone away so secretly. Did the dog make any remarks about the time the bag reached the deck?”
”Nix on Captain Joe! He's getting too sleepy! He stirred only once in the night, and that was when the boat was coming up to us. He frightened the pirates away, when Case and I had planned to shoot 'em up!”
”Then,” concluded Clay, ”when we reach the truth of it, we'll discover that it was Chet who was around here last night, and who threw the bag on deck. You know we have been thinking, all along, that he might have taken it.”
”That's what Jule insists on,” Alex. returned, ”while the rest of us think one of the visitors took it, and that Chet chased off the boat to get it back, not knowing that the diamonds had been taken out of it.”
”It seems clear now,” Clay replied, ”that Chet took it. In the first place, there is no good reason for supposing that the visitors would find the bag, or take it if they did find it; or take any trouble to return it after they had found its contents of no value. Chet got it, all right, and, disappointed and chagrined at the subst.i.tution we had made, he lost no time in throwing it back at us.”
”Chet was broke, wasn't he?” asked Alex., with a sly grin.
”So far as I know, yes. Anyway, he didn't look like a millionaire when we took him on board and fixed him out with a suit of your clothes!”
”Then how would he ride up the river in a steamer, or ride down the river to the next town to take the steamer, or hire a rowboat and pay the captain of the steamer for letting him off in his boat as soon as he saw the light of the _Rambler_?”
”You smash all my solutions,” laughed Clay. ”Now, give me one of your own, so I can smash that,”
”I ain't no prophet!” grinned the red-headed boy, ”but I'm gambling that when we get down to the bottom of matters we'll find Red, the Robber, in the mess!”
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