The Six River Motor Boat Boys on the St. Lawrence; Or, The Lost Channel

by William Osborn Stoddard

  CHAPTER V

  TEDDY GIVES AN EXHIBITION

  "There is one sure thing," Clay said, as the boys listened, "and thatis that we have got to watch the _Rambler_ to-night. I propose that wetake down the hammocks and go back to our bunks."

  "It's a shame to sleep in that little cabin," Alex protested, "whenwe've got the whole wide world to snore in. Suppose you boys remainhere on shore, and let me stand guard on the boat."

  "That will be nice!" Jule laughed. "Alex always gets his soundestsleep when he's on guard."

  "Don't you worry about me," Alex said, "I'll keep awake, all right.Besides, I want to hear the owls talk."

  "I think we would better all go back to the _Rambler_," Clay advised."We can anchor her farther out in the stream, leave one on guard, andso pass a quiet night. It looks risky to leave the boat where she is."

  "Perhaps that's what we ought to do," Alex agreed, giving Jule a nudgein the ribs with his elbow. "Who's going to stand watch?"

  "I will," Case offered. "I'll sit up until daylight, and then you boyscan get up and catch fish for breakfast."

  "I want a fish for breakfast two feet long," Alex declared. "I'llcatch it and cook it in Indian style. That will be fine!"

  "How do you cook fish a la Indian?" asked Case.

  "Aw, you know," Alex replied. "First, you get your fish; then you diga deep hole in the ground and fill it full of stones. Then you build aroaring fire on the stones. Then you wrap your fish up in leaves andput it on the hot stones and cover it up. Then, if you want it to cookquick, you must build a fire on top. They sell fish cooked in that wayat two dollars an order in Chicago."

  "Cook it any way you want to," Clay said, "only don't muff it the wayCase does when he tries to make biscuits. We'll be hungry."

  Taking down the hammocks, the boys moved back to the _Rambler_. Clay,Alex, and Jule, after listening in vain for a time for more signalsfrom the woods, finally went to their bunks, leaving Case sitting onthe deck, across which a great tree on the east bank threw a long blurof shade.

  Clay and Jule were soon sound asleep, but Alex lay awake listening.There was a notion at the back of his brain that the signals heard hadbeen treated too lightly. He knew that Clay, always active and readyfor any emergency, considered the party secure in midstream, but hewas by no means satisfied that the best steps for the protection ofthe boat had been taken.

  After a time he arose, dressed himself, and softly slipped out ondeck, leaving the rest sleeping in the cabin.

  "It isn't morning yet," Case said, speaking out of the shadow. "Whydon't you go back to bed? You'll be sleepy to-morrow."

  "Have you heard any more owl talk?" asked Alex.

  "Not a line," replied Case. "Go on back to bed."

  Alex did go back to bed, but could not sleep. Presently thelong-expected owl-call came from the north, and then Teddy rubbed hissoft nose against the boy's hand.

  "What do you want, old man?" whispered Alex. "Does that hooting warnyou of danger, too?"

  The cub put his paws upon the edge of the bunk and tried to answer inbear talk that it did.

  "All right," Alex said, "I'll just go out and see about it."

  When he reached the deck for the second time, Case stood at thegunwale listening. The call came again from the woods.

  "Now you hear it, don't you?" asked Alex, scornfully. "I reckon youfellows would sit around here and let those wops carry off the boat."

  "Well, haven't they got to show up before we can do anything to them?"asked Case reproachfully. "I guess they have."

  "I'd like to know what they are doing," Alex wondered, "and I justbelieve I could sneak out and learn something about it. It makes menervous, waiting here for them to get in the first blow."

  "If I had a house and lot for every time you've been lost on our rivertrips," Case grinned, "I'd own the biggest city in the world. You goback to bed, or I'll get Clay out here to tie you up."

  Teddy now came sniffing where the two boys stood, and, lifting hispaws to the gunwale, looked over in the forest.

  "See that!" Alex exclaimed. "Even the bear knows there is somethingwrong on! If you'll keep that twirler of yours still for a littlewhile, I'll go and see what it is."

  "You're the wise little sleuth!" Case declared. "Go on back to bed anddream that you're Nick of the Woods."

  "Tell you what," Alex said, "we'll tie a line to the rowboat, and I'llrow ashore, then you pull the boat back, and I'll creep out in thethicket and see what I can discover. I believe those outlaws willgather around the campfire. Anyway, they're foolish if they don't."

  "If you take my advice," Case said, "you won't go, but if you insiston it, I'll draw the boat back, for our own protection."

  Very reluctantly, then, Case assisted in getting the boat into theriver, found a long line to attach to the prow, and helped the boyaway on his journey. He felt guilty for aiding in the adventure.

  Alex landed in a thicket almost straight west of the _Rambler_, and atonce secreted himself. No signals had been heard for some moments, andthe boy believed that he had reached the shore without attractingattention. Case drew the boat back and sat waiting.

  Alex remained perfectly still in his hiding-place for some moments.There was only the noises of river and forest. To the west, the embersof the campfire made a faint red glow in the moonlight.

  Just as the boy was about to move out of the thicket, he heard a heavysplash in the river, followed by words of command and entreaty fromCase. The splashing continued, and presently the bushes at the edge ofthe stream were moved by an entering body.

  "That's Captain Joe!" thought Alex. "He's always ready for a run inthe woods. I suppose I ought to send him back."

  But it was not Captain Joe that thrust a wet nose into Alex's hand. Itwas Teddy, the bear cub, and his greeting was so friendly and sincerethat all thoughts of sending him back to the boat vanished from theboy's mind. Teddy shook the water from his coat like a great dog, andcuddled up to the boy as if thanking him.

  "You're a runaway bear," Alex whispered to the cub, "and I ought tosend you back, but I'll just see if you know how to behave in the kindof society I am going to mix with. Will you be good?"

  Teddy declared in his best bear talk that he would be good, and theboy and the cub lay in the thicket, still listening, for a long timebefore moving. Then Alex crept toward the campfire.

  When he came to a considerable rise in the center of the groundbetween the two streams, he found that the ground was broken androcky. It seemed to him that a great crag had formerly risen where hestood, and that some distant convulsion of nature had shattered it.

  To the south, between the rivers and at no great distance from theegg-shaped peninsula, ran a long, rocky ridge. Making his way to this,he secreted himself in the shadow of a boulder and settled down towatch and listen.

  After a time Teddy grew impatient at the inactivity thus forced uponhim, and began moving restlessly about.

  "Bear!" warned Alex, "if you make any more racket here, I'll send youback to the boat. We're supposed to be sleuthing!"

  Teddy evidently did not like the idea of being sent back to the boat,or of keeping still either, so he almost immediately disappeared,notwithstanding Alex's efforts to detain him by main force. The boycalled to him in vain.

  "Now," thought Alex, "the cub has gone and done it! He'll thrasharound in the woods and scare my outlaws away. I wish I had tied himup on the boat. I might have known he would make trouble."

  The boy waited a long time, but the cub did not return. Now and thenhe could hear him moving about in the thicket.

  "He's just laughing in his sleeve at me!" complained the boy. "I wishI had hold of him!"

  Directly a sound other than that made by the bear came to the ears ofthe listening boy. Some one was creeping towards his shelter. He couldsee no one, for the shadows were thick at the point from which thesounds proceeded, but presently, he heard a voice.

  "They went back to the boat," some one said gruffly.

 
"That's all the better for us," another spoke.

  "I don't know about that," the first speaker said.

  "Why, we'll just cut her out and take boys and boat and all."

  "That's easier said than done," was the reply. "Those boys are nospring chickens. They have guns and they know how to use them."

  "Well," the other chided, "it isn't my fault that they went back tothe boat. If you hadn't been giving your confounded signals, theywould have slept by the fire and everything would have been easy."

  Alex listened with his heart beating anxiously. There was no longerany doubt that the right construction had been placed on the signalswhich had been heard. The outlaws who had attacked them in the covewere now on the peninsula, ready to make trouble.

  While the boy listened for further conversation, a rustling in thethicket at the base of the cliff told him that Teddy, the cub, wasstill in that vicinity. He chuckled at the thought which came to him.

  "I wish I had the little rascal here," he mused. "I think he might beable to do something in the line of giving those fellows exercise! Iwish I could get over to him."

  The boy started in the direction of the sound, but paused when heheard one of the men saying:

  "Where are the others?"

  "Down on the river shore," was the reply.

  "Then what is all that noise?" demanded the other.

  "I don't hear any noise," was the surly reply.

  "There is some one moving in the bushes."

  "Then it must be one of the boys," Alex heard, "and I think we hadbetter investigate. It would be luck to catch one of them."

  "It wouldn't be any luck for me to be caught," thought Alex, "and soI'll just make a sneak back to the boat. I've learned all I wanted toknow, anyway."

  He started away, but almost at his first motion a stone becamedetached from the ledge at his side and went thundering down towardthe spot from which the voices had proceeded.

  "There!" one of the men cried, "I told you there was some one here."

  Together the men immediately rushed to the spot where Alex lay hidden.They rustled through the bushes without any attempt at concealment,scrambling up the acclivity with the use of both hands and feet.

  As they advanced another rustling came from the left, and Alex sawTeddy on the way back to his side. The moon, creeping farther to thesouth, found an opening in the dense foliage above the ledge, andthrew a long shaft of light upon the exact spot where Alex lay,revolver in hand, waiting for the expected attack.

  He moved out of this natural limelight hastily, but as he did soanother figure entered it. Advancing swiftly, the men who haddiscovered the location of the boy, saw him disappear and saw the newfigure which came upon the scene. They stopped instantly.

  To their excited imaginations Teddy, standing somewhat above theirheads, seemed to be at least nine feet high! Evidently trying topropitiate Alex for running away from him, the cub set aboutpracticing all the stunts the boys had been teaching him for months.

  Standing upon his hind legs, he extended his paws in a boxing attitudeand pranced about, as he had been taught to do, in all the attitudesof the prize ring. The hair on his neck and back seemed to bristlewith anger. His little round eyes, bright in the moonlight, twinkledviciously!

  The men who were watching this trained exhibition, held their breathsin terror. They expected to be attacked by the animal immediately.Directly, they began backing slowly away. Then Teddy broke into hispet amusement, a whirling half-dance and they turned and ran,stumbling down the declivity, brushing through the briars and clingingvines of the thicket, and finally disappearing in the shadows fartherupstream!

  It did not take Alex long to find his way to the cub.

  "You certainly are enough to scare the life out of a stranger," hesaid, addressing the bear. "If you don't mind, now, we'll go back tothe boat. We've got news for the boys, at any rate."

  But Teddy was not inclined to go back to the close cabin. He wanted alonger run in the woods. Before Alex could seize the collar which hadbeen placed about his neck, he was away again. Alex pursued him forsome distance, and then turned back toward the boat.

  When he reached the shore and called softly to Case to row the boatover to him, there was no answer from the craft, as the rush of theriver drowned his voice, but a most unexpected one came from the shoreback of him. He turned quickly to see the barrel of a gun shining inthe moonlight. He reached for his own weapon, but a hand caught hiswrist and held it, as if in a grasp of iron.

  "All right, kid," a harsh voice said, "if they don't want you on yourboat, we'll give you a home on ours. We've got the snuggest littlecraft upstream you ever saw. You're welcome to it, only it may bedangerous for you to try to get away or make any noise!"