CHAPTER XXV
COMMONPLACE, AFTER ALL
"Can that be Alex. moving the _Rambler_?" asked Case, as the motorssputtered out their insistent clamor. "I don't believe he has had timeto get on board yet."
"Well, Captain Joe has, anyway!" Jule declared, as a sharp bark camefrom the craft, which now seemed to be turning around. "That's theCaptain's voice, all right."
Standing high on the levee, with the lights of the city growing belowthem, the lads watched the _Rambler_ for a moment and then started ona run up the stream toward a small landing that was not far from thecamp-fire.
"If Alex. wasn't on board," Case reasoned, "Captain Joe wouldn't bethere. If Alex. is running the boat up to that landing, it is safe forus to go there."
The _Rambler_ did tie up at the landing, and then the boys saw thatthe rowboat they had missed was tied to her stern. The willowmattresses were also still hanging on to the cords to which they hadbeen tied. The men at the fire started up toward the landing as theboys reached it, but, much to the surprise of the lads, they did notattempt to go on board. In a moment Clay, Alex. and Mose showed theirfaces on deck.
"Come aboard!" shouted Alex. "I've arranged a surprise party for youhere."
"What is Chet doing on there?" demanded Case. "I thought we left himwith his new friends, the thieves, in that old house in the city."
"This is no time for story-telling!" said another voice on board, andthe man who had been known as Red, the Robber, came out of the cabinand sat down, calmly, on the gunwale. The boys on shore were, by thistime, prepared for almost anything. When they reached the deck, Redwaved a farewell to the men on the levee and the boat whirled downtoward the Gulf of Mexico.
"You see," Alex. grinned, "we don't know where we are going, but weare on our way."
"I know!" Clay insisted, "we are going to complete our trip to theGulf of Mexico. We've had all the mystery we need on this voyage, andthe next one that starts anything in that line will be banished to oneof the mattresses!"
"All right," Alex. retorted. "We don't care about knowing what thisall means! I reckon it is too commonplace to refer to again."
He grinned at Red and Chet as he spoke, and they both laughed back athim.
"We have with us to-night," Alex. went on, in a very good imitation ofthe after-dinner orator, "Red, the Robber! His specialty is takingboats away from boys and sneaking off down the river with them--untilsome one gets the drop on him!
"We also have with us," he continued, "Chester Vinton, the waif whowas rescued from a barren island in the Mississippi with a hundredthousand dollars' worth of diamonds in his possession! He will soon dohis stunt of telling how he found them in a piece of pie at a RockIsland restaurant.
"This wonderful Chet is also the last word in friendship. When he seesboys who have befriended him, it is his habit to turn them over tothieves, who lock them up--not in anger, but to protect them fromother naughty boys!"
Instead of showing anger at this blunt talk, Red and Chet sat down onthe gunwale and laughed until the river echoed back their voices. Clayalso seemed much amused.
"What's the answer?" demanded Case, turning to Chet.
"Now you boys just wait a short time," Red observed, "and you'll knowall about it. I would tell you right now, only I see how hungry youall are. And, seeing that I have a monster beefsteak in the cabin,with ducks ready to roast, and eggs ready to fry, why, it seems likewe ought to eat before we mix with any long yarns!"
So Case and Alex. took to the cabin, and the odors of steak and coffeeand roasting duck soon filled the boat. While the good things werecooking the _Rambler_ dropped down to a wharf where a tank wagon ofgasoline awaited them, and there, also, loads of provisions of allkinds were put on board.
And the strangest part of it all was that there was nothing to pay!Red appeared to have temporary charge of the boat, and the billsseemed to have all been paid in advance. They were headed down streamwhen breakfast was eaten.
"We ought to reach the Gulf in three or four weeks, if we hurry!" Redobserved, as he carved the ducks. "That is, if we hurry in the rightway!"
"I thought it would take until spring," Chet broke in. "I hoped so!"
Alex. regarded the two with a whimsical smile on his freckled face.
"How long will it be before you'll both disappear?" he asked.
"Never again!" laughed Chet. "Say, boys, I did make a quick get-away acouple of times? What? I hated to go, but I just had to."
"Yes, and you prevented Case and I making one at the house in thecity," Alex. said.
"It is all as simple as twice two," Red observed, sitting back fromthe table. "The robbery at Rock Island was planned and carried out bySam, the outlaw who assisted me in the capture of the _Rambler_. Iknew that at the time I was with him--at the time I let him go--orwhen you boys did, rather."
"But why didn't you pinch him?" demanded Alex. "There's a reward."
"Because I hadn't then discovered the goods which had been taken. Hewas going to take me to them, I being a possible purchaser!"
"Well, of all the nerve!" Jule cut in. "Just think of that, now!"
"Were they in that old house on the bayou?" asked Alex.
"Some of them were. As soon as I got off your boat I wired back tohave the place surrounded and searched. They found all the silks andfurs there! You boys did a good job for me when you permittedyourselves to be trapped."
"It was Captain Joe and Mose who did the good job when they got usout!" Jule said.
"Did you find Sam again?" asked Case, in a moment. "He was a corker!"
"You boys found him in the swamp," Red replied soberly, "and Moseexecuted the sentence of the law upon him--hanged him by the neck!"
"So you are a detective?" asked Case. "Why didn't you say so?"
"I am not," was the reply. "I am the owner of the warehouse that wasrobbed, and I set out to get the goods back, that is all."
"But you asked us to take Chet on down the river when he had thediamonds in his clothes!" Alex. exclaimed. "What about that? It was afunny stunt."
"Of course I didn't know that he had the diamonds," added Red, now tobe known as Mr. George Redmond. "He told me about his having had themwhen I told him that Sam was dead, that was last night, in NewOrleans. Then he told me that he had taken the diamonds from Sambecause he wanted to restore them to me, but had promised Sam that hewould never reveal his, Sam's, connection with the crime. Of courseSam never knew positively that the boy had stolen the diamonds, but hesuspected."
"And sent this riverman, Gid Brent, on board at Cairo to see if theboy was there?"
"Yes, he did that. By that time I was satisfied that the boy had beenin on the robbery--that he had been forced to enter the building byway of a window and open the door for the thieves to enter.
"I knew that the boy would tell the whole story to me if I could gethim away from the robbers, and not scare him half to death by puttinghim in jail. So I followed him along down the river. As the robberswere making their way down toward New Orleans, too, I was doing apretty good job following him--and especially as the robbers wereafter him, too. They believed, all but Sam, he had taken the diamonds,you see.
"They got him last night and searched him, but found nothing. Thenthey told him that if he would get Alex. and Case into their handsthey would let him go. So Chet did that very thing, and now the twoboys are witnesses that the robbers admitted to them that they were inon the robbery!
"When they let Chet go he made for the _Rambler_ on a run, and foundme on the way. All the people who were in the old house are underarrest. And the diamonds are up at Memphis in the deposit vault, andall is well."
"How do you know that?" demanded Clay.
"Why, we opened the box, the cashier and I," was the reply. "I knewthey were there before I knew that Chet had ever had them. My onegreat difficulty was to get hold of the boy after he ran off atMemphis! Your boat was watched all the way down, you know, of course."
Then Clay told of his talk with the sher
iff, and they all laughed atthe idea that they had not seen through it all long before.
"If Chet had kept to boats I could have found him," Red went on, "buthe rode on wreckage, and that made it difficult. I might have savedyou boys and Chet some of this mystery talk if I had told you about itwhen I had Alex. in the cabin of my boat, after I knew where thediamonds were, but I thought I would let it work out for itself,especially as I was having the time of my life."
"I suppose those three mechanics were detectives, too?" asked Case.
"They were just what they represented themselves to be," was thereply, "and they got good positions at Vicksburg. They are expectingto meet you down the river, in a houseboat of their own. I saw themsoon after they left you."
"I don't wonder the robbers wanted to get hold of Chet," laughed Alex."They must have been red-headed when they found that the diamonds hadbeen stolen from them!"
"Yes, they were," replied Chet, "but they didn't suspect me, at first.The man Brent, who came on board the _Rambler_ at Cairo, would havekilled me had he found me there. I was afraid he would, so I took tothe river."
"And you took to the river again the night you threw the bag back ondeck, too."
"Yes, I got pretty cold, too. I knew where the bag was, in the cabin,all the time, and I thought the diamonds were in it. Believing itwould be safe, I did not take it and run away, as I had threatened todo, but when the cashier and another came on the boat I did take itand skip. When I found that the diamonds were not there I threw thebag back just to let you know I was wise to the game," he added.
"It is a commonplace story, after all, when you come to get it alltold," said Mr. Redmond. "If it has spoiled your river trip I'm sorryfor it!"
"We wouldn't have had any fun only for that!" cried Alex.
"Well," Clay cut in, "now we'll go down the river and have fun! We'llspend two months or more on the way to the Gulf, and then we'll putthe motor boat on board a ship and sail her around to some point wherewe can get into the St. Lawrence river. The St. Lawrence comes next,you know."
"Why not put her on a gondola car again and take her as near to theheadwaters of the St. Lawrence as we can?" asked Case. "I'd ratherfloat down than sail up, any day."
"We will decide that when we get done here," Clay answered.
Those were two golden months for the boys, and Mr. Redmond seemed toenjoy the outing fully as much as any of them. They fished and huntedand loafed in the numerous passages of the delta of the Mississippi,and built roaring fires on the knolls, when they found them, and livedthe care-free lives boys enjoy so much.
And then they were off for Chicago, and from there to the headwatersof the St. Lawrence. Their adventures on this noble river will befound in the next volume of this series; entitled:
"The Six River Motor Boys on the St. Lawrence; or, the Lost Channel."
THE END.
The River Motor Boat Boys on the Mississippi; Or, On the Trail to the Gulf Page 25