CHAPTER XXI
DODGING A POLICE BOAT
"You little coon!" Clay gasped.
"Hurrah for Mose!" cried Alex.
"If you'll come down here I'll hug you!" shouted Gregg.
"How did you ever think of it?" Case called out.
Mose, now the happiest little negro boy in the United States, satastride of his limb and grinned until it seemed that the top of hishead would drop off backward!
In the meantime, the river pirate had remained unnoticed on the deck,the rope so deftly dropped by Mose still around his neck. Case finallybent over him.
"Why!" he exclaimed, shrinking back. "The man is dead!"
"Dead!" echoed Clay. "What killed him?"
Then they all bent over the still figure for a closer examination.Just as Case had declared, the robber was dead. His neck had beenbroken by the rope when Mose had drawn him off his feet! Alex. lookedup at the boy.
"You must have a good pull in your arms!" he cried. "How did youmanage to swing him up? You're a wonder, Mose!"
Mose only grinned in reply, but Clay explained the matter by sayingthat the boy had thrown the rope over a limb higher up and used thatas a pulley.
"Still," he added, "it took a lot of muscle to jerk that heavy man offhis feet. I didn't think the boy had it in him."
Then came the question as to what disposition should be made of thebody. There was no hard ground near at hand so that a decent gravecould be prepared. There were marshy knolls, it is true, but anyexcavation made there would instantly fill with water.
"Well," Gregg said, "the best we can do is to bury him in the water. Idon't mean in the lagoon or in the river, but in a grave which willfill with water. There he will at least be out of the reach ofreptiles and wild animals when the water subsides."
"But how are we ever going to get out there and dig a grave?" askedJule, who was not inclined to waste much effort on the body of a manwho, in life, would have robbed, perhaps murdered, them!
"With your permission," Gregg said, "we'll take the body out and buryit. I haven't much use for men of his type, but he's dead, and thatsettles all accounts!"
"We may be able to get a couple of birds for supper while we areaway," suggested Eddie Butler. "We have been so busy lately, that wehaven't eaten, or provided anything to eat! I'm empty clear to mytoes!"
"And I'll catch a fish off the boat!" Jule volunteered. "I saw somebig ones jumping up not long ago! They've been driven out of theirnests by the flood."
So Gregg and his friends went away in the rowboat to bury the outlawand get a couple of ducks for supper, while Jule and Alex. angled overthe stern of the boat for a fish. The first rush of the flood waspast, but the water was still high. There was a strong current rushingpast the stern of the _Rambler_, and this indicated that there must bea channel open to the main river not far below.
The boys caught a great catfish and two awkward-looking buffalo-fishand turned them loose in the stream before they succeeded in gettinganything they wanted for supper. Then they caught a dozen perch ofgood size and proceeded to clean them.
By the time the fish were ready for the pan Gregg and his friends wereback from their expedition with half a dozen fat ducks, alreadydressed.
"We'll have some for breakfast, and some for dinner!" Eddie declared."I feel now as if I'd never get enough to fill me up again!"
Something long and twisting dropped on the man's shoulders and felloff to the deck.
"Holy smoke!" he shouted. "Look at the snake!"
A shout from up the tree told of the trick Mose had played on the man,and the rope was coiled away. In a short time Mose came sliding downthe trunk.
"He smells supper!" explained Clay. "I've a notion to set Captain Joeon him!"
"Dat dog don't bite dis coon!" Mose replied. "Ah'm in lub wid datdog!"
Captain Joe and Teddy came forward and looked the three visitors overapprovingly.
"That bear would make a good meal!" Gregg declared, with a wink atCase.
Mose's eyes stuck out for a minute, and then he tickled his own chinand gave out a sound like a goat.
"B-a-a-a-a-a-a! B-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!" he bleated.
"What's the matter with the coon?" asked Gregg, with a look ofsurprise.
"He's telling us to get wise to the alfalfa!" Jule cut in. "Alex.don't know how to translate so white men can understand."
"You'll both wash dishes for a month!" roared Clay, doubled over withlaughter. "We make that a penalty for talking slang," he explained,turning to Gregg.
"But I don't understand yet," the other went on. "What is the matterwith the boy? Has he turned himself into a billy goat?"
"He's suggesting that you mow the lawn!" Case explained. "He doesn'tlike the fire-escapes!"
Clay roared and pointed to the beards worn by the three, and then theyunderstood and joined in the laugh until the swamp echoed back thesounds.
"You'll all have to wash dishes, I take it!" Gregg declared.
"That's about the way it usually turns out, when one starts talkingslang," Clay explained. "We're all so full of it that it just bubblesout."
"It is fine that we have something to be jolly over," Gregg hastenedto say, "for the prospects of getting out of here are not alluring."
"Wouldn't be no fun if everything went right!" Alex. insisted. "Wehave the most sport when we're lost, or stolen, or strayed away. Now,you watch me cook these ducks."
The boy got out a baking pan standing on three short legs. The bottomwas double so as to prevent burning. Then he put two fat ducks inside,secured the cover, and removed what seemed to Gregg to be the wholetop of the stove.
The short legs of the pan rested on the red-hot coals in the firebox,while the cover was always within reach. As soon as the ducks, whichhad previously been hastily parboiled, began to simmer and send forthappetizing odors, the boy watched them every minute, turning andbasting until they were a beautiful golden brown.
In the meantime coffee had been made and the fish fried on theelectric coil.
"I presume you'll want hot biscuits for supper, too?" asked Clay.
The visitors were too busy with the game to do more than shake theirheads.
"We usually have three kinds of meat, fish, baked potatoes, pancakes,light bread, pie, honey, and three or four vegetables on the side,"Alex. explained, with a wink at Mose, who sat in a corner next to thedeck with Joe and Teddy watching the meat disappearing from a"drumstick" he was busily engaged on.
"An' possum pie!" the little negro boy added, licking his chops.
"Sure! I forgot the possum pie!" Alex. declared. "Excuse me!"
"Certainly!" laughed Gregg, "and we'll excuse you, too, for all futureproducts of the imagination! The twenty course dinners at the La Sallehaven't got anything on this little banquet! For my part, I don't carewhether we ever get out of here, now, or not."
"Some day," Alex. observed, "I'll show you how to cook a steak a labrigand! After you eat one of them you'll go hungry for a week beforeyou'll touch anything else!"
"You may lead me to one of them any time you see fit!" Eddie laughed.
The river was still roaring and foaming about the _Rambler_, caught inthe narrow space between the two cypress trees. Just where the boatlay the current turned away to the east, that is the current of thelagoon. The Mississippi was, of course, across the inundated spit ofland which lay on the west shore of the river and on the east side ofthe bayou or lagoon.
Just as the boys finished their somewhat delayed supper the lights ofa steamer showed up the stream. It passed the mouth of the bayou andhugged the opposite shore of the Mississippi for a time, then headedfor the west shore.
"That's strange!" Case exclaimed. "She sees our lights, but what isshe coming over to this side for?"
The mystery became more of a mystery still when, reaching the westside, the steamer turned prow up stream and started to breast theflood, still carrying great masses of wreckage down stream. She madeher way up to the mouth of the bayou and stopped, h
er propellers goingjust fast enough to keep from dropping back.
"If I'm not mistaken," Gregg suggested, "that is a boat carryingofficers on a hunt for the escaped convicts. Can't we get out of herebefore they reach us?"
"Why should we run away from them?" asked Clay, suspiciously.
"Because they will mistake us for convicts," replied Gregg. "Anofficer in a position to abuse his authority always does so. Many ofthe man-hunters along the river are little better than the men theyhunt. Some of them are worse. This, of course, does not apply to thesheriffs and deputies of the counties touching the river, but to hireddetectives and gunmen who come here to make a living hunting others."
"You must be sore on the police," Alex. exploded. "I've got a lot offriends on the Chicago police force. They're good fellows, at that!"
"All right!" Gregg assented. "There are a lot of good men there. Butif you want to remain here and permit those ruffians to overrun yourboat, insult you, and hold you prisoners until you can get to sometown where identification is possible, you can do so. We can stand itif you can."
"There may be some sense in what he says," Clay urged, "and if wecould get out of the trap we are in and make the propellers go, I'd bewilling to go on down the river and let the officers have the wholecountry to themselves."
"Can't we follow this bayou current and get out on the river belowthem?" asked Jule.
Clay said no; Gregg and his chums said yes.
"The water has been cutting a channel for a long time," Greggexplained. "It needed only a slight push to send the remaining bankdown. There are few obstructions in the new channel, as I figure itout, and I believe we would go through like a top once we got started.And we'd better hurry, if we are going to do anything, for, of course,they have seen your lights. They wouldn't have stopped here if theyhadn't."
"But the propellers!" urged Clay. "They're broken."
In a moment one of the men had his clothes off to the undersuit andwas diving down at the stern of the _Rambler_. He remained under thewater so long that the boys began to fear that he had met with someaccident, or been attacked by a snake or an alligator. He came upsmiling, however.
"Only clogged!" he cried. "You, Gregg and Eddie, get axes and chop theeast tree down! The boat will then swing away from the other. You mustmake the cut down in the water, then we'll have to lift the prow overthe stump."
The plan suggested proved successful, and the _Rambler_, under power,and trailing the mattresses, was soon feeling her way down the newchannel. Then excitement was observed on the steamer, and she washeaded about for the main stream again. It looked like a race was on!
The River Motor Boat Boys on the Mississippi; Or, On the Trail to the Gulf Page 21