Chapter IX: The Rambler Heard From

"He's got the motor boat in his pocket--perhaps!" Clay said, dejectedly. "We'll have to walk back to Chicago, I take it! Well, we may as well laugh as cry, so here goes for the merry side of things. It might be worse, you know!"

"I fail to see how it could be much worse," Case observed. "We are shy clothes and everything! Right now we look like a lot of monkeys dancing about in the forest!"

Jule was by this time within hailing distance, and Buck called out to him, asking where the boat was. For answer the boy pointed down the river.

"I knew it!" said Case, with a shiver.

"How did it happen?" asked Buck.

"It drifted away," replied Jule, when he came within speaking distance, "but some men down the river caught it. It will be up here in a few minutes." "Whoop-ee!" shouted Case.

"I've got a picture of our walk back to Chicago!" Clay exclaimed, dancing about in his ruined sweater and trousers. "Not yet--not for your Uncle Zeke!"

"Why didn't you get into the boat and ride up?" asked Buck.

"There was no place to land," was the reply. "There comes the boat now, with three men aboard of her."

"I give it up," declared Rube, rising to his feet. "At the present time if cows were selling for a cent apiece, the whole party couldn't buy a piece of cheese an inch in size!"

"Don't you be too sure about that!"

And Jule took the missing roll from a pocket in his shirt and presented it to the owner. The moment of blank amazement over, the boys placed the roll of money on the ground, and, joining hands, circled around it until they were all out of breath.

"I found it on the ground where the bear left it," said the boy in explanation. "Wasn't he a good, kind bear to leave anything at all?" he added, whimsically.

"How do you know there was any bear?" demanded Case. "The fix the clothes were in might have been the work of mischievous boys, for all you knew."

"Not much," Jule replied. "Boys wouldn't have a nest in that hollow tree, would they? And boys wouldn't be sliding down, and raking the bark off the tree, would they?"

"Then you knew just what we were to meet?" demanded Clay.

"I thought Alex had been caught without his automatic, and that the bear had chased him away," answered Jule.

"That's exactly what happened," said Alex. "The bear came out of the tree and I had to run for it. When I got to the tree I found the bear close to my heels. I think he would have got me only for the mouth organ. How I did long for my automatic!"

"Why didn't you run while the bear was attending to the clothing?" asked Rube, who was so glad to get his money back that his face wore a chronic and perpetual grin.

"To tell the truth," replied Alex, with a sly smile, "I wasn't here when the brute showed up! I was away on a little trip of my own. Now you have the whole story."

"Well," said Rube, "as we have to make another trip to the village, and it's getting along toward the middle of the afternoon, perhaps we'd better be deciding who's to go. We can't all go in the rigs we have on, that's a sure thing. The bear didn't leave us too many clothes--not enough to hurt any."

"I've got an idea!" suggested Alex. "It will save us a trip to town and, at the same time, expedite matters. What's the matter with my going to the burg and buying for us all?"

"Well, if you'll promise not to follow off any bears; that's the ticket!" said Buck.

"The bears are likely to follow Alex off!" laughed Case.

The motor boat now dropped anchor in front of where the boys were standing, and the party was subjected to no end of "roasting" because of their disreputable appearance.

"Looks like the Garden of Eden!" roared the man who seemed to be in charge. "Where are your clothes?" he went on. "If I was the proprietor of that layout, I'd be looking around for a rag man!"

"The bear caught sight of our clothes first," Clay answered. "Got time to take one of the boys back to the store?" he asked. "As you see, we are in need of clothes."

"I should say so!" replied the other.

The story was soon told, and the men were off for the town in a hurry. For once, Alex did the job of buying the clothes as it should have been done, and was soon on his way back to the boys.

As he understood the motor thoroughly, it was not necessary for the boatmen to return with him. They left him with many expressions of good will, and many admonitions to give all members of the bear family a wide berth in future.

It was fortunate that the provisions purchased by Buck and Rube were intact, they having been hidden in a separate place.

The clothes fitted all the boys very well indeed, but Rube, owing to what Alex called "his length of beam," was forced to don a suit about a foot too large for him and a foot too short.

"These clothes are all right, only they don't fit!" said Rube, looking down at his protruding legs. "They fit me too quick the long way, and they are about the size of an elephant the short way."

"You shouldn't notice it!" volunteered Alex. "If this thing keeps on, you'll be short in your bank account."

"How much is there left in that roll?" asked Clay.

"Now, don't you worry about the roll wasting away," replied Rube, "for there's more where that came from."

"Glad to know it--we may want to make another touch!" was Alex's reply. "We're pretty deep in that roll now, if anybody should ask you," he added, with a wink at Jule.

"Now, see here," Rube responded, "don't you ever think I take any chance whatever in losing this money. You boys haven't said a word to me about how you are hooked up! We've been too busy for that. But don't you ever suspect that I don't know. You haven't mentioned any names, except Clay, Alex, Case and Jule, but I read all about you and the _Rambler_ in a Chicago newspaper, and the minute you referred to the _Rambler_ I had you located."

"It seems that we are getting notorious," suggested Clay. "We can't make a move that some newspaper don't record."

"Lucky for you that it is so," Rube continued.

"Why is it lucky for us?" demanded Jule, interrupting.

"Well," Rube went on, "when you picked up Paul Stegman last night in the rain, and began talking about the _Rambler_ and Captain Joe, I had you sized up. So when Buck came down the river in his motor boat, I got aboard, thinking you kids might need a little lookin' after. Now you've got the whole story."

"And so, without knowing it, we had a bodyguard from the time we rescued Paul from the river?" Case interrupted. "It was mighty good of you both."

"I wonder how Paul is faring?" Clay suggested.

"Oh, the boat thieves probably threw him overboard," Case declared. "I'd like to wring their necks!"

"Now," Rube said, "I've got a hunch that you boys are able to look out for yourselves, so I'll ride as far as the _Rambler_ and quit you there. I have a little work to do for myself. If you are as level-headed in future as you have shown yourselves to be in the past, you won't need any watching."

"How do you know we'll catch the _Rambler_?" asked Jule.

"I'm just supposing a case," replied Rube with a grin.

"You just bet we'll catch her!" Alex contributed. "And when we get her next time, we'll keep her. This chasing after boats all the time ain't what it's cracked up to be."

It was late in the afternoon when the _Esmeralda_ got under way, just as Clay had planned. A close watch was kept on both shores as the boat proceeded downstream.

Naturally, the _Rambler_ would take the easiest course, which was downstream, but for this very reason the boys decided to search every foot of water until they came to it. As soon as it was dark enough, the thieves might seek to baffle pursuit by heading up the river.

At last darkness settled down on the water. Had the night been made to order it could not have served the purpose of the boys better. If the _Rambler_ had crept into some hiding place along the stream her lights would show them where she lay.

In case her lights were not burning and her motors were not running it would be a difficult thing to locate the boat, and for this reason the _Esmeralda_ was kept slowed down.

From the first Clay had not believed the story told by Rube. He might be interested in a ranch, and Clay did not doubt that he was, but that was not the reason for his appearance on the scene just at that time. The boy did not care to make himself disliked by prying too openly into the affairs of the others, yet he was positive that there was a hidden motive back of the one reason given.

Clay talked the matter over with the other boys, but could not reach a satisfactory conclusion.

"Perhaps he's an officer," suggested Jule.

"In that case," replied Clay, "he would be apt to know some of the other officers."

"From first to last," answered Jule, "we haven't met a single man who has shown any authority. I guess he's just helping out for the fun he's getting out of it."

"And Buck? What about him?" asked Case.

"Give it up, boys," cried Alex. "You're all tangled up now, and the more you guess the more you'll get tangled."

The _Esmeralda_ slipped downstream with no lights in sight. Whenever they came to a long stretch of river the motor was set in motion, but ordinarily it remained silent.

Of course the boys were unable to pick out the localities for speeding, they being strangers to that section of country, but here Buck and Rube proved very capable guides.

They knew the upper Rio Grande as the schoolboy knows his primer. In fact, knowing the stream so well, it was remarkable that they had never before landed at Hayes. But Hayes is a small place, and, besides, they had never had occasion to visit the burg.

At ten o'clock a slow rain began falling, and, the boat at the time being just around a point of land from a creek, Buck, who was in charge, shut off the power and permitted the craft to drift.

"Do you see anything that looks like a light?"

It was Rube who asked the question.

At that instant, almost before the words were off his lips, came a low whistle of warning.

"There they are!" said Case.

"Keep still," admonished Clay.

The boat drifted on, past the mouth of the creek, and let an anchor drop silently into the water.

"I don't know what we've struck, but we know that wasn't no coyote's call," declared Case.

"It had a human sound," interrupted Jule.

"Listen!" warned Buck. "We'll hear it again in a moment. I thought I heard it then."

"That was only rain," explained Alex. "The first one might have been that, too."

At that instant, before another word could be spoken, a great light flashed out, followed by a shrill scream.