Part 31 (1/2)

Without deciding the point the boys tied up some distance above the city and prepared supper. The moon arose in a clear sky about eight o'clock and the boys did not turn on the electric lights after eating.

They sat in the moonlight on the deck and watched Captain Joe, Teddy and Mose tumbling about.

”If it wasn't so much trouble to dress,” Case said, after a time, ”I'd like to go to a theatre to-night, and have a swell supper afterwards.”

”You don't want much!” laughed Clay.

”Why not go, then?” asked Alex. ”I'm not too lazy to put on a decent suit.”

”Do you mean it?” demanded Case, rising from his chair.

”If the others will stay and guard the boat I mean it,” was the reply.

”Go if you want to,” Clay answered the inquiring look, ”for Jule and Mose can help me keep off the pirates! Only don't remain away all night.”

”Ah done like to see dis town!” Mose suggested.

”You'll have to wait until some other time, Mose,” Clay replied. ”You must stay on board and help repel boarders now!”

The little negro grinned as if perfectly satisfied with the arrangement, and went on with his boxing match with Teddy. Case and Alex. dressed as rapidly as possible and were taken ash.o.r.e, in the four-oared boat captured above Memphis, at the foot of a street not far from a trolley line running to the business center of the city.

When Clay returned with the rowboat, Mose was on one of the willow mattresses which had been brought down the river.

In a few minutes Clay called to him to come on board, but there was no reply. Mose was nowhere in sight. He had evidently started out to see the city on his own hook!

”I reckon that is the last we'll ever see of him,” Jule commented, as they gave up the search for the boy. ”He'll get to shooting c.r.a.ps in the city and live there forever. Can't do anything with a kid like that.”

”It is hard work to knock any sense into the head of a boy brought up on the St. Louis levee,” Clay admitted, ”but I hope he'll return.”

”Perhaps he followed Case and Alex., and will return with them,” Jule suggested.

”That would be like him,” Clay admitted.

The boys were not sleepy and the moonlight was fine, so they sat on the deck until midnight, waiting for the others to return. They had not returned at one o'clock, and the watchers were becoming anxious when a call from the sh.o.r.e came to their ears. In a moment the call was repeated, shriller than before, and then there followed a splash in the river and a shot.

The boys saw a figure swimming toward the _Rambler_ and got out their guns.

”Doesn't look very formidable!” Clay observed, as the figure came nearer. ”It looks like Mose! Now, what the mischief is the little c.o.o.n up to, I'd like to know?”

”It is Mose, all right,” Jule a.s.sented, ”and there's some one on sh.o.r.e shooting at him. He may have been up to some of his pranks on sh.o.r.e.”

Directly the shooting on the sh.o.r.e ceased, and then Mose came on faster, not being obliged to swim under water half the time. He crawled, chilly and dripping, on deck and rolled his eyes at Clay.

”Dey done got um!” he exclaimed.

”What about it?” demanded Jule. ”Who's got them?”

After much questioning it was learned that Mose had left the _Rambler_ in time to overtake Case and Alex., that he had followed them into the city, and had seen them talking with Chet Vinton, the mysterious boy who seemed to turn up in the oddest places and to disappear in the strangest manner.

The boys had talked with Chet for a long time, the little negro said, and had not gone to the theatre at all. Instead, they had gone into a disreputable part of the city with the boy, and had there met two men believed by the negro to be thieves.