Chapter XXV: Commonplace, After All

"Can that be Alex. moving the _Rambler_?" asked Case, as the motors sputtered out their insistent clamor. "I don't believe he has had time to get on board yet."

"Well, Captain Joe has, anyway!" Jule declared, as a sharp bark came from the craft, which now seemed to be turning around. "That's the Captain's voice, all right."

Standing high on the levee, with the lights of the city growing below them, the lads watched the _Rambler_ for a moment and then started on a run up the stream toward a small landing that was not far from the camp-fire.

"If Alex. wasn't on board," Case reasoned, "Captain Joe wouldn't be there. If Alex. is running the boat up to that landing, it is safe for us to go there."

The _Rambler_ did tie up at the landing, and then the boys saw that the rowboat they had missed was tied to her stern. The willow mattresses were also still hanging on to the cords to which they had been tied. The men at the fire started up toward the landing as the boys reached it, but, much to the surprise of the lads, they did not attempt to go on board. In a moment Clay, Alex. and Mose showed their faces on deck.

"Come aboard!" shouted Alex. "I've arranged a surprise party for you here."

"What is Chet doing on there?" demanded Case. "I thought we left him with his new friends, the thieves, in that old house in the city."

"This is no time for story-telling!" said another voice on board, and the man who had been known as Red, the Robber, came out of the cabin and sat down, calmly, on the gunwale. The boys on shore were, by this time, prepared for almost anything. When they reached the deck, Red waved a farewell to the men on the levee and the boat whirled down toward the Gulf of Mexico.

"You see," Alex. grinned, "we don't know where we are going, but we are on our way."

"I know!" Clay insisted, "we are going to complete our trip to the Gulf of Mexico. We've had all the mystery we need on this voyage, and the next one that starts anything in that line will be banished to one of the mattresses!"

"All right," Alex. retorted. "We don't care about knowing what this all 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 at him.

"We have with us to-night," Alex. went on, in a very good imitation of the after-dinner orator, "Red, the Robber! His specialty is taking boats away from boys and sneaking off down the river with them--until some one gets the drop on him!

"We also have with us," he continued, "Chester Vinton, the waif who was rescued from a barren island in the Mississippi with a hundred thousand dollars' worth of diamonds in his possession! He will soon do his stunt of telling how he found them in a piece of pie at a Rock Island restaurant.

"This wonderful Chet is also the last word in friendship. When he sees boys who have befriended him, it is his habit to turn them over to thieves, who lock them up--not in anger, but to protect them from other naughty boys!"

Instead of showing anger at this blunt talk, Red and Chet sat down on the gunwale and laughed until the river echoed back their voices. Clay also 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 know all about it. I would tell you right now, only I see how hungry you all 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 like we ought to eat before we mix with any long yarns!"

So Case and Alex. took to the cabin, and the odors of steak and coffee and roasting duck soon filled the boat. While the good things were cooking the _Rambler_ dropped down to a wharf where a tank wagon of gasoline awaited them, and there, also, loads of provisions of all kinds 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 bills seemed to have all been paid in advance. They were headed down stream when breakfast was eaten.

"We ought to reach the Gulf in three or four weeks, if we hurry!" Red observed, as he carved the ducks. "That is, if we hurry in the right way!"

"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 a couple 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 the city," Alex. said.

"It is all as simple as twice two," Red observed, sitting back from the table. "The robbery at Rock Island was planned and carried out by Sam, the outlaw who assisted me in the capture of the _Rambler_. I knew that at the time I was with him--at the time I let him go--or when 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. He was 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 to have the place surrounded and searched. They found all the silks and furs there! You boys did a good job for me when you permitted yourselves to be trapped."

"It was Captain Joe and Mose who did the good job when they got us out!" 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 Mose executed 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 was robbed, 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 the diamonds in his clothes!" Alex. exclaimed. "What about that? It was a funny stunt."

"Of course I didn't know that he had the diamonds," added Red, now to be known as Mr. George Redmond. "He told me about his having had them when I told him that Sam was dead, that was last night, in New Orleans. Then he told me that he had taken the diamonds from Sam because he wanted to restore them to me, but had promised Sam that he would never reveal his, Sam's, connection with the crime. Of course Sam never knew positively that the boy had stolen the diamonds, but he suspected."

"And sent this riverman, Gid Brent, on board at Cairo to see if the boy was there?"

"Yes, he did that. By that time I was satisfied that the boy had been in on the robbery--that he had been forced to enter the building by way 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 get him away from the robbers, and not scare him half to death by putting him in jail. So I followed him along down the river. As the robbers were making their way down toward New Orleans, too, I was doing a pretty good job following him--and especially as the robbers were after 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. Then they told him that if he would get Alex. and Case into their hands they would let him go. So Chet did that very thing, and now the two boys are witnesses that the robbers admitted to them that they were in on the robbery!

"When they let Chet go he made for the _Rambler_ on a run, and found me on the way. All the people who were in the old house are under arrest. And the diamonds are up at Memphis in the deposit vault, and all is well."

"How do you know that?" demanded Clay.

"Why, we opened the box, the cashier and I," was the reply. "I knew they were there before I knew that Chet had ever had them. My one great difficulty was to get hold of the boy after he ran off at Memphis! Your boat was watched all the way down, you know, of course."

Then Clay told of his talk with the sheriff, and they all laughed at the 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, "but he rode on wreckage, and that made it difficult. I might have saved you boys and Chet some of this mystery talk if I had told you about it when I had Alex. in the cabin of my boat, after I knew where the diamonds 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 the reply, "and they got good positions at Vicksburg. They are expecting to meet you down the river, in a houseboat of their own. I saw them soon 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 had been 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 have killed me had he found me there. I was afraid he would, so I took to the river."

"And you took to the river again the night you threw the bag back on deck, 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 it would be safe, I did not take it and run away, as I had threatened to do, but when the cashier and another came on the boat I did take it and skip. When I found that the diamonds were not there I threw the bag 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 all told," said Mr. Redmond. "If it has spoiled your river trip I'm sorry for 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'll spend two months or more on the way to the Gulf, and then we'll put the motor boat on board a ship and sail her around to some point where we 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 the headwaters of the St. Lawrence as we can?" asked Case. "I'd rather float 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 to enjoy the outing fully as much as any of them. They fished and hunted and loafed in the numerous passages of the delta of the Mississippi, and built roaring fires on the knolls, when they found them, and lived the care-free lives boys enjoy so much.

And then they were off for Chicago, and from there to the headwaters of the St. Lawrence. Their adventures on this noble river will be found in the next volume of this series; entitled:

"The Six River Motor Boys on the St. Lawrence; or, the Lost Channel."

THE END.