“Here comes another pretty big boat,” answered Tom. “And she is closer to shore than that other craft, so we’ll get the rollers at their best.”
“Don’t get too close,” cried Songbird. “I knew a fellow who did that once and got sucked under.”
On came the river boat and was soon opposite to where the houseboat lay. She carried only a few passengers, but a very large quantity of freight.
“Here she comes!” cried Fred. “Now for some more fun.”
“Don’t get too close!” repeated Songbird, but Tom did not heed him and went within fifty feet of the steamboat’s side. The rollers here were certainly large, but all of a sudden Tom appeared to lose interest in the sport.
“Hullo, Tom! What are you so quiet about?” sang out Dick in alarm.
“Perhaps he has a cramp,” put in Sam. “Tom, are you all right?” he cried.
“Yes, I’m all right,” was the answer, and then Tom swam to his brothers with all speed. The steamboat was now well on its way down the Ohio.
“What is it?” asked Dick, feeling that something was wrong. “If you have had even a touch of a cramp you had better get out, Tom.”
“I haven’t any cramp. Did you see them?”
“Them? Who?”
“The two fellows at the stern of that boat?”
“No. What of them?”
“One was Dan Baxter and the other was Lew Flapp.”
CHAPTER XIX
WORDS AND BLOWS
“Baxter and Flapp!”
The cry came from several at once, and all climbed to the deck of the houseboat after Tom.
“Are you certain of this, Tom?” asked Dick.
“Yes, I saw them as plain as day. They were looking at the houseboat.”
“Did they see you?”
“I think they did, and if so they must have seen the rest of our crowd too.”
“We ought to go after them,” came from Fred. “The name of that steamboat was the Beaver.”
“Wonder where she will make her first stop?”
For an answer to this question Captain Starr was appealed to, and he said the craft would most likely stop first at a town which we will call Penwick.
“How far is that from here?” asked Sam.
“About six miles.”
“Can we get a train to that place?”
“Yes, but I don’t know when.”
A time-table was consulted, and it was found that no train could be had from Pleasant Hills to Penwick for two hours and three-quarters.
“That is too late for us,” said Dick. “If they saw Tom they’ll skip the moment the steamboat touches the landing.”
“If you want to catch them why don’t you follow them up in the tug?” suggested Songbird.
“Dot’s the talk!” came from Hans. “I would like to see you cotch dot Flapp and Paxter mineselluf.”
“I’ll use the tug,” said Dick.
He summoned the captain and explained the situation. It was found that steam on the tug was low, but Captain Carson said he would get ready to move down the stream with all possible speed.
“I would like you to stay on the houseboat,” said Dick, to Songbird, Fred, and Hans. “I don’t want to leave Captain Starr in charge all alone.”
So it was agreed; and fifteen minutes later the tug was on the way after the Beaver, with Dick, Tom, and Sam on board.
“Can we catch the steamboat, captain?” questioned Tom, anxiously.
“We can try,” was the answer. “If I had known you wanted to use the tug again to-night I should have kept steam up.”
“Well, we didn’t know.”
The Beaver was out of sight and they did not see the steamboat again until she was turning in at the Penwick dock.
“There she is!” cried Sam.
“Hurry up, Captain Carson!” called out Dick. “If you don’t hurry we will lose the fellows we are after, sure.”
“I am hurrying as much as I can,” replied the captain.
In five minutes more they gained one end of the dock and the Rovers leaped ashore. The Beaver was at the other end, discharging passengers at one gang plank and freight at another.
“See anything of them?” asked Sam.
“Yes, there they are!” shouted Tom, and pointed to the street beyond the dock.
“I see them,” returned Dick. “Come on!” And he started for the street, as swiftly as his feet could carry him.
He was well in advance of Sam and Tom when Dan Baxter, looking back, espied him.
“Hi, Flapp, we must leg it!” cried Baxter, in quick alarm.
“Eh?” queried Lew Flapp. “What’s wrong now?”
“They are after us!”
“Who?”
“The three Rover Boys. Come on!”
The former bully of Putnam Hall glanced back and saw that Dan Baxter (and he too had been a bully at the Hall) was right.
“Where shall we go to?” he asked in sudden fright.
“Follow me!” And away went Dan Baxter up the street with Flapp at his heels. Dick, Tom, and Sam came after them, with a number of strangers between.
“Do you think we can catch them?” asked Tom.
“We’ve got to catch them,” answered Dick. “If you see a policeman tell him to come along—that we are after a couple of criminals.”
Having passed up one street for a block, Baxter and Flapp made a turn and pursued their course down a thoroughfare running parallel to the river.
Here were located a number of factories and mills, with several tenement houses and low groggeries between.
“They are after us yet,” panted Flapp, after running for several minutes. “Say, I can’t keep this up much longer.”
“Come in here,” was Dan Baxter’s quick reply, and he shot into a small lumber yard attached to a box factory. It was now after six o’clock and the factory had shut down for the day.
Once in the lumber yard they hurried around several corners, and presently came to a shed used for drying lumber. From this shed there was a small door leading into the factory proper.
“I reckon we are safe enough here,” said Dan Baxter, as they halted in the shed and crouched down back of a pile of boards.
“Yes, but we can’t stay here forever,” replied Lew Flapp.
“We can stay as long as they hang around, Flapp.”
In the meantime the Rover Boys reached the entrance to the yard, and Dick, who had kept the lead, called a halt.
“I am pretty certain they ran in here,” he declared.
“Then let us root them out,” said Tom. “And the quicker the better.”
The others were willing, and they entered the small lumber yard without hesitation. As there were but three wagonways, each took one, and all presently reached the entrance to the drying shed.
“See anybody?” questioned Dick.
“No,” came from his brothers.
“Neither did I. I see there is a big brick wall around this yard. If they came in here they must have gone into this shed or into the factory itself.”
“That’s it, Dick,” said Tom. He pushed open the door to the shed. “I’m going to investigate.”
“So am I,” said both of the others.
In the shed all was dark and soon Sam stumbled over some blocks of wood and fell headlong.
“Confound the darkness,” he muttered. “We ought to have brought a light.”
“I’ve got one,” answered Dick, and feeling in his pocket he produced one of the new-style electric pocket lights. He pushed the button and instantly the light flashed out, as from a bull’s-eye lantern.
“Hurrah, that’s a good thing!” cried Tom. “By the way, isn’t it queer there is no watchman here?”
“Maybe the night watchman hasn’t go
t around yet,” answered Dick, and struck the truth.
They began to move around the shed, much to the alarm of both Dan Baxter and Lew Flapp.
“I don’t see any trace—” began Dick, when of a sudden the light landed fairly and squarely on Baxter’s face. Then it shifted to the face of Lew Flapp.
“The old Harry take you, Dick Rover!” yelled Baxter, in a sudden rage, and throwing his whole weight against the pile of boards on which the eldest Rover was standing, he caused it to go over, hurling Dick flat on his back on the floor.
“Dick, are you hurt?” called out Tom. The electric light had been broken, and all was pitch-dark.
“I—I guess—not,” answered Dick. “But it was a close shave.”
“They are getting out!” came from Sam, as he heard a scuffling of feet.
“No—they are going into the factory,” shouted Tom. “Stop, Baxter! Stop, Flapp! If you don’t—Oh!”
Tom’s cry came to a sudden end, for without warning a billet of wood struck him fairly on top of the head and he went down as if shot.
By this time Dick was on his feet.
“What’s up, Tom?”
“I—I—oh, my head?”
“Did somebody hit you?”
“Yes.”
Sam was running after Baxter and Flapp. But they reached the factory first and banged the door full in the face of the youngest Rover.
“Open that door, Dan Baxter!” called out Sam.
“All right!” was the sudden reply, and open flew the door. Then down on poor Sam’s head came a heavy billet of wood and he pitched backward unconscious. Then the door was closed once more and locked from the inside.
CHAPTER XX
DAYS OF PLEASURE
“Sam! Sam! Speak to us!”
It was Dick who uttered the words, as he knelt beside his youngest brother and caught his hands. Tom was just staggering up.
But Sam was past speaking, and made no reply.
“What’s the matter, Dick?” asked Tom.
“Poor Sam is knocked out completely. I don’t know but what they have killed him.”
“Oh, don’t say that!”
“Have you got a match? I’ve lost that electric pocket light.”
“Yes.” Tom struck the match and lit a bit of pine wood that was handy, and found the light. “Dick, don’t tell me he is dead.”
“Oh!” came in a deep gasp from poor Sam, and he gave a shiver from head to feet.
“He isn’t dead, but they must have hit him a terrible blow. Let us carry him out into the open air.”
This they did, and laid the youngest Rover on some boards. Here he presently opened his eyes and stared about him.
“Don’t—don’t hit me again!” he pleaded, vacantly.
“They shan’t hit you again, Sam,” answered Dick, tenderly. He felt of his brother’s head. On top was a lump, from which the blood was flowing.
“This is the worst yet,” said Tom. “What had we best do next?”
“Call a policeman, if you can find any.”
“That’s rather a hard thing to do around here.”
However, Tom ran off, and while he was gone Dick did what little he could to make Sam comfortable. At last the youngest Rover opened his eyes again and struggled to sit up.
“Where—where are they, Dick?”
“Gone into the factory.”
“Oh, my head!”
“It was a wicked blow, Sam. But keep still if your head hurts.”
When Tom came back he was accompanied by a watchman from a neighboring yard and presently they were joined by the watchman of the box factory, who had been to a corner groggery, getting a drink.
“What’s the row?” questioned the first watchman, and when told, emitted a low whistle.
“I think those fellows are in the factory yet,” continued Dick.
As soon as the second watchman came up both went into the box factory and were gone fully ten minutes. Then Dick followed them, since Sam was rapidly recovering.
“Can’t find them,” said one of the watchmen. “But yonder window is open. They must have dropped into that yard and run away.”
“Is the window generally closed?”
“Yes.”
“Then you must be right.”
“Why don’t you call up the police? You can do it on the telephone.”
“Have you a telephone here?”
“Of course.”
Dick went to the telephone and told the officer in charge at the station what had occurred.
“I’ll send two men at once,” said the officer over the wire; and in five minutes the policemen appeared.
Again there was a search, not only of the box factory, but also of the whole neighborhood, but no trace of Dan Baxter or Lew Flapp could be found.
Having bathed their hurts, both Sam and Tom felt better, and all three of the Rovers walked to the police station with the policemen, and there told the full particulars of their story.
“You were certainly in hard luck,” said the police captain, who happened to be in charge. “I’ll do what I can to round these rascals up.” But nothing came of this, for both Baxter and Flapp left Penwick that very night.
When the Rover boys returned to the houseboat, it was long after midnight, but none on board had gone to bed. The Stanhopes and Lanings had come back, bringing their friends with them, and all had been surprised to find the Rovers absent. After remaining on the houseboat a couple of hours the friends had gone home again.
“Something is wrong; I can see it in your looks, Dick,” said Dora, as she came to him.
“Sam, where did you get that hurt on your head?” questioned Grace, in alarm.
“Oh, we had a little trouble, but it didn’t amount to much,” answered the youngest Rover as bravely as he could.
“Yes, but your head is in a dreadful condition.”
“And Tom has a cut over the left eye,” burst in Nellie. “Oh, you have had a fight of some kind, and I know it!”
“A fight!” cried Mrs. Stanhope. “Is it possible that you have been fighting?”
“We had a brush with a couple of rascals in Penwick,” said Dick. “We tried to catch them, but they got away from us. That is all there is to it. I’d rather not talk about it,” he went on, seeing that Mrs. Laning also wanted to ask questions.
“Well, you must really be more careful in the future,” said Mrs. Stanhope. “I suppose they wanted to rob you.”
“They didn’t get the chance to rob us,” put in Tom, and then the Rovers managed to change the subject. The Stanhopes and the Lanings did not dream that Dan Baxter and Lew Flapp had caused the trouble. Perhaps, in the light of later events, it would have been better had they been told the truth.
Dick gave orders that the Dora should be moved down the river early the next day, and before the majority of the party were up, Pleasant Hills was left behind.
“I sincerely trust we have seen the last of Baxter and Flapp,” said Sam.
“So do I, Sam,” answered Dick.
“I’d like to meet them and punch their heads good for them,” came from Tom.
After that a week slipped by with very little out of the ordinary happening. Day after day the houseboat moved down the river, stopping at one place or another, according to the desires of those on board. The weather continued fine, and the boys and girls enjoyed themselves immensely in a hundred different ways. All had brought along bathing suits and took a dip every day. They also fished, and tramped through the woods at certain points along the stream. One night they went ashore in a field and camped out, with a big roaring fire to keep them company.
“This is the way it was when the cadets went into camp,” said Dick. “I can tell you, we had lots of sport.”
“It must have been very nice, Dick,�
�� answered Dora. “Sometimes I wish I was a boy and could go to Putnam Hall.”
“Not much! I’d rather have you a girl!” declared Dick, and in the dark he gave her hand a tight squeeze.
During those days Dick noticed that Captain Starr acted more peculiar than ever. At times he would talk pleasantly enough, but generally he was so close-mouthed that one could scarcely get a word out of him.
“I believe he is just a wee bit off in his upper story,” said the oldest Rover. “But I don’t imagine it is enough to count.”
“If he had any ambition in him he wouldn’t be satisfied to run a houseboat,” said Tom. “It’s about the laziest job I know of.”
The Monday after this talk found the Dora down the Ohio as far as Louisville. To avoid the falls in the stream, the houseboat had been taken through the canal, and during the middle of the afternoon was taken down the stream a distance of perhaps eighteen miles, to Skemport,—so named after Samuel Skem, a dealer in Kentucky thoroughbreds.
Fred Garrison had a friend who came from Skemport and wanted to visit him. The others were willing, and Fred went off with Tom and Sam as soon as the boat was tied up. When they came back, late in the evening, the others were told that the friend had invited all hands to visit a large stock farm in that vicinity the next afternoon to look at the horses there.
“That will be nice!” cried Dora. “I love a good horse.”
Two large carriages were hired for the purpose, and Aleck was allowed to drive one, a man from the local livery stable driving the other.
“How soon will you be back?” sang out Captain Starr after them.
“Can’t say exactly,” replied Dick.
The distance to the stock farm was three miles, but it was quickly covered, and once there the Rovers and their friends were made to feel perfectly at home.
“I’d like to go horseback riding on one of those horses,” said Dora, after inspecting a number of truly beautiful steeds.
“You shall,” said the owner of the stock farm; and a little later Dora, Nellie, Dick, and Tom were in the saddle and off for a gallop of several miles, never once speculating on how that ride was to end.
CHAPTER XXI
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE HOUSEBOAT
Never was a girl more light-hearted than was Dora when in the saddle on the Kentucky thoroughbred. And her cousin was scarcely less elated.
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