These houseboats are common all along the Ohio, c.u.mberland, Tennessee and Mississippi rivers. Fishermen and indolent river characters live in them the year round. Some of the boats are of good size and well built and furnished, while others are merely shanties built on rafts of logs and other spoils taken from the waters.

Many of the boats carry whole families, and go sailing toward the Gulf with streamers of shirts and petticoats blowing from clotheslines.

Others carry two or three men and numberless dogs. Those who reside on the boats live princ.i.p.ally on fish, and on corn meal and pork purchased with the proceeds of fish sales.

Shortly after dinner the boys were asked to come on board a shanty boat navigated by two men and numerous dogs, so the _Rambler_ was run alongside and Clay and Alex. went aboard, where they were warmly welcomed by two Chicago young men who were making the river trip in the way of a winter vacation. Their quarters were crude but comfortable. They had had a rough voyage because of the flood, but declared that they were going down to the Gulf if the raft held out.

Almost the first question Clay asked was about the Rock Island robbery.

"So you have been overhauled by the officers, too, have you?" laughed one of the young men, called Ben by his chum. "We had a bit of that, also, but the officers didn't remain with us very long. It doesn't take a week to search our craft!"

"Are you sure they were officers?" asked Clay.

"Oh, yes, they were officers, all right. They asked for a boy of about twelve, who, they declared, had been seen down the river, and who is believed to have been a.s.sociated with the Rock Island robbers. They also asked for a man of six feet and over, with red hair."

Clay looked at Alex. significantly and asked for any news they might have of the robbery--any details they might have learned.

"Oh, we got the story from a St. Louis newspaper we begged of a steamer captain," was the reply. "It seems that the silks, furs, and diamonds stolen were stored in the warehouse one day and taken out by thieves that same night. A boy answering to the description of the one the officers asked for was seen about the premises during the afternoon, and at one time he was observed in the company of a giant of a man with red hair.

"It is the theory of the police that the thieves captured the boy and forced him to enter through a broken window and unfastened the door, a~la Oliver Twist. They believe that if he can be caught he will be able to identify the robbers if they are caught. The red-headed man was seen in the city, wandering about the streets, aimlessly, on the night of the crime. It is not believed that he was interested in the robbery personally. However, they want him because he seemed to take a great interest in the boy."

"Have the officers found any of the stolen property?" asked Alex.

"Not that we know of," was the reply. "The robbers got off handily, and it is believed they put the goods on board some river boat and sent them down toward New Orleans. Diamonds, silks and furs can be hidden in a small s.p.a.ce."

The boys visited with the strangers for an hour or more and then went on down the river, sailing a very little faster than the shanty boat, which depended entirely on the current, and which was obliged to tie up at intervals to avoid wreckage.

"I've got a notion," Alex. said, as the boys left the shanty boat in the distance, "that the newspaper story is the right one. That boy never took part in that robbery of his own free will, though. I am sure of it! And the man? That was Red he described, eh?"

"It undoubtedly was," Clay replied, thoughtfully.

"That's your bosom friend!" Alex. grinned. "You let him escape!"

"What else could I do, under the circ.u.mstances?" demanded Clay. "The fellow saved my life! Sam would have murdered me only for him!"

"Well, if he's on the level, what's he doing with a man like Sam?"

questioned Alex., still grinning.

"We shall have to leave that question to the future," was the short reply.

"You believe that Red had a hand in the robbery at Rock Island?"

persisted the boy.

"I don't think anything about it! I'm waiting for additional information!"

"Well, we've got a long way to go yet," Case cut in, "and we may meet with the red-headed man again. We may meet him in some jail yet, if our luck doesn't change!"

"Speaking about jails," Alex. questioned, "what do you make of the old jail of a house Jule and I were locked up in? What do you think they wanted to hold us for?"

"Probably to keep you from spying on what was going on there," Clay suggested.

"But what was going on there?" asked Alex. "That is what _we_ didn't find out!"

"Whatever it was," Jule observed, "the people interested in keeping it secret took long chances when they left us in the dark room with only an old man to guard us. And imagine them never knowing that Mose and the dog were in the grounds!"

At mention of Mose Alex. burst into a roar of laughter.

"I never saw a human face that showed real fear until I saw Mose looking in at the broken window!" he said, directly. "I have seen men and women show fright, but never anything like that! He thought he had come on a collection of ghosts! I presume he thought we, Jule and I, were dead and buried in the cellar, and that our spirits had come forth to haunt the murderers! And he streaked it away like a flash of light!"

"There's probably nothing worse than the manufacture of moonshine whisky going on in the old house," Case contributed. "Or the loot from the warehouse may have been stored there," he added. "The boys heard heavy articles being moved, though they may have been scared stiff and mistook the footsteps of a mouse for the heavy noises!"

"I hope you'll get in just such a predicament some day!" growled Jule.

"It wasn't any fun, sitting there in the dark! And I expected that crazy old man to shoot us any moment! I believe he was crazy! He acted as if he was!"

"That's right!" exclaimed Case. "Keep on talking, and I won't have to wash a dish all the way to the Gulf. I love to hear you get funny."

"That will do for you!" cried Jule, gleefully. "I see you washing the supper dishes right now!"

"I'd like to go back and investigate that old house," Alex. observed.

"It would be great fun! I believe it stood there when the cave-dwellers lived along the Chickasaw bluffs, and that was before De Soto discovered the river and was buried in its depths."

"I thought La Salle discovered the Mississippi," Case said, with a wink at Clay.

"He made a stab at navigating it from the Illinois river down," Alex.

answered, seeing that Case was prodding him in the desire of receiving information. "But he gave the wrong course to the stream. The real Mississippi turns at St. Louis and runs off toward the Rocky Mountains."

"Yes it does!" exclaimed Jule. "You're in need of mental rest, young man."

"Certainly it does," Alex. insisted. "The longest stretch of water takes the river name, doesn't it? Well, the Missouri is about three thousand miles long from the fountain-heads of the Gallatin, Madison and Red Rock lakes to the junction with the Mississippi, while from the junction to headwaters the Mississippi is only about twelve hundred miles long!"

"It does seem as if the longest river should carry the name," said Case. "In that event, this would be the Missouri river!"

"Sure it would," insisted Alex. "The river from the Red Rock lakes to the Gulf is the longest river in the world--eight hundred miles longer than the Amazon, though not so wide! Some day the name of the Missouri will become the Mississippi, or the Mississippi will be called the Missouri!"

The boys argued over the proposition for a long time, until it was time to get supper, and then Clay and Alex. began watching for ducks, with which the river swarms at times. While they secured three fair-sized birds, Alex. caught fish, and insisted on their being cooked with the ducks.

"I'll never get enough to eat if I leave the menu to you boys," he declared, "and Mose feels about it just as I do!" he added, pulling the little negro's ear.

"Ah sure do feel empty!" answered Mose, rolling up his eyes.

The Mississippi is a tangle of channels and islands above Memphis, and the boys decided to tie up for the night on the down-stream side of one of the little "tow-heads" which are so frequently seen close to larger islands. These are formed by deposits of sand and vegetable matter, but they increase in size rapidly as soon as cotton-wood brush takes possession of the new ground, a.s.sisting materially in resisting the encroachments of the current.

The islands of the Mississippi are numerous and uncertain as to location. They have all been formed by the cutting of new channels across headlands. The river itself winds like a very crooked snake through the soft bottom lands of the south, and the water is forever finding new and shorter ways to reach the Gulf.

From the junction of the Ohio, there are one hundred and twenty-five numbered islands from Cairo to Bayou la Fourche, in Louisiana, and besides these there are nearly as many more which bear the names of the owners. Many of these islands are grown up with impenetrable thickets or show only deserted fields.

In proceeding down the great river the boys had kept on only sufficient power to gain steerway, as they were in no haste to reach the Gulf of Mexico, which was their final destination on that trip.

They decided that day to travel nights no more.