CHAPTER V

A NEW CAPTAIN ON BOARD

Clay continued his work on the motors for a long time after the departure of Alex. and Jule. It was impossible to make them work with safety without the repairs Case had gone after, but the boy decided that the present would be a fine time to clean them.

While he worked, polishing and oiling, Mose and Teddy came out of the cabin arm-in-arm! At least the little negro boy had one arm around the cub's neck!

"You've got over your scare, eh?" Clay laughed, as the two came to his side.

"Ah sure tu'n white las' night!" Mose declared, rolling his eyes until they looked like white billiard b.a.l.l.s. "Ah's so scared!"

"You are black enough this morning," Clay suggested. "Where did you come from?"

"Ah done come f'm San Louee," was the reply. "Ah lib on de levee."

"Did you run away from St. Louis?" asked Clay. "Did you come all the way from the levee on the roof Alex. fished you off from?"

Mose, still playing with the cub, explained that he had sneaked on board a steamer at St. Louis, but had been put ash.o.r.e at a landing above Cairo by the mate. Then, so great had been his desire to get farther south for the winter, he had taken a drifting boat and pushed out into the swollen stream.

The boat had been crushed in a ma.s.s of wreckage, but the boy had managed to crawl up on the floating roof where he had been found. The mammy he had spoken of as having been so liberal with him in the bestowal of names was an old colored lady who had given him a place to sleep on cold nights and occasionally fed him when he was hungry. He knew nothing of his parents or any relatives. He was just a levee waif.

After a time Clay went to the cabin and lay on his bunk, which let down from the ceiling, being usually drawn up during the daytime. The motors were still under process of cleaning, and various parts lay scattered about.

Presently the boy heard a great racket on deck. Captain Joe's deep voice came in threatening growls, and Mose and Teddy scampered into the cabin. Clay sprang to his feet and made for the deck, not doubting that Alex. and Jule had returned and were up to some mischief. Before he reached the door he heard the sound of a heavy blow.

He could see no one through the doorway, which Mose had left open, although most of the deck was in sight, yet the blow he had heard warned him that something out of the ordinary was taking place. He stepped back to a shelf for his revolver.

He knew that during floods bands of outlaws frequented the river in quest of plunder, and it was his first impression that one of these had discovered the motor boat and was trying to board her. He wondered at the silence of the dog.

As the boy reached for his weapon, a gruff voice from the cabin doorway commanded him to face about and hold up his hands.

"And hold 'em up empty, too!" the gruff voice said.

There was nothing for Clay to do but to obey. It was with an effort, however, that he kept his arms extended. The leering eyes of the man with the face of a fox who stood before him with a revolver pushed almost into his face caused such hot surges of rage to fill the boy's brain that he came near facing the peril and springing upon the outlaw.

Mose, levee bred and wise to the unlawful purpose of the intruder, moved stealthily toward the shelf where Clay's revolver lay, in plain sight. In another second it would have been in the little fellow's hand, with what result Clay could not imagine, but the outlaw saw the movement and edged forward, still keeping the revolver leveled at Clay, much to the latter's disgust.

"Here, you c.o.o.n!" the man shouted, "get over in that corner and stay there! Move, or I'll give you a lift!"

The brute gave Mose a savage kick in the side as he spoke. It was one thing for Clay to be placed in a humiliating position, to be threatened with a gun, but it was quite another for him to stand inactive and see a boy brutally treated! Disregarding all his thoughts of the uselessness of the move, the boy sprang at the outlaw.

Although only a boy, Clay was muscular and in training. The man he had attacked was stronger and heavier than the lad, but he was slower of movement, and the result of the conflict might have been a victory for Clay if the two had been permitted to continue the struggle unmolested.

While the meager furniture of the little cabin was being broken and tossed hither and yon by the combatants, while Teddy was jumping about, eager to get hold of one of the fighters--as he had been taught to do when the boys were wrestling--and while Mose was doing his best to get over to the shelf where the revolver lay, there came a quick jar on deck, a jar caused by the bunting of a boat against the hull of the _Rambler_, and then hurrying footsteps on the forward deck.

Clay fought all the harder when the sounds reached his ears, for he was sure that Alex. and Jule had returned, and that short work would now be made of the intruder. He was gradually securing a hold on his enemy which would have ended the battle when he was seized and lifted--by a giant, it seemed to him--clear of the cabin deck and held there while the outlaw slowly regained his feet and picked up his weapon.

Clay saw that it was the other side that had received the reinforcements, and motioned to Mose to remain quiet and keep out of sight. He feared that further activity on the part of the negro boy would add to his punishment.

After catching his breath, the outlaw with whom Clay had been struggling lifted a pair of bloodshot eyes to Clay's face and sprang at him, his huge fists clenched until the knuckles showed hard and white.

"You b.u.m!" he shouted, lunging at the lad, "I'll give you some of your own medicine! What do you mean by striking me?"

The blow would have landed squarely in the boy's face, but the man who had picked him off the outlaw warded it off with a fist like a ham, and set the boy behind the great bulk of his own person. Clay was encouraged by this defense, and began hoping that he had found a friend instead of another enemy.

But this hope was soon shattered, for the newcomer produced a hard cord, which had evidently once been used as a fishline, and coolly proceeded to tie the boy's wrists. This task completed to his satisfaction, he pushed the boy over on his bunk and tossed Mose on top of him.

"There!" he cried. "You keep quiet, or I'll turn Sam loose on you!

And, Sam, if you molest the boy again I'll settle with you for it. I take it he had a right to fight for his boat! And the little c.o.o.n! You keep your hands off him, too!"

The man called Sam flashed an ugly look out of his foxy, inflamed eyes and went out on deck. In a moment he was seen in the doorway again, dragging Captain Joe after him.

"Shall I pitch the dog overboard?" he asked, in a surly tone. "He took a piece out of my leg and I gave him a rap on the head. He's knocked out!"

Clay sat up on the bunk and glared at the man, who was still holding the bulldog by the collar. At that moment, whatever the consequences, the fellow's life would not have been worth a farthing if the boy had had a gun!

"Don't let him kill the dog!" Clay said, appealing to the giant. "He's a good fellow, that dog! Of course he bit that robber! He wouldn't have been a good dog if he hadn't. Take what you want on the boat, but let the dog live."

The giant, who was at least six foot six inches in height and large in proportion, looked Captain Joe over after the manner of one acquainted with dogs while Clay awaited his decision anxiously.

"The kid is right," he finally declared. "This is a good dog, and we'll keep him with us. Took a piece out of your leg, did he?"

The big fellow placed his hands on his mammoth hips, threw back his head until his hairy throat rose like a st.u.r.dy column of strength, and poured forth such a torrent of laughter that Teddy came out of the cabin to see what new sport was being prepared for his amus.e.m.e.nt. Sam struck at the cub, but the other pushed him away before he had done any mischief.

"That's a good one!" roared the giant. "Took a piece out of your leg, did he? If he ain't pizened, and lives after that, I'll keep him.

There's a heap of pizen snakes down my way that need looking after.

Took a piece out of your leg! That's too good for anything! Ho! Ho!

Ho! Took a piece out of your leg!"

"I hope he'll some day take a piece out of that throat of yours!"

roared Sam.

"No doubt, no doubt!" replied the giant. "He may be a doin' of it when the hangman is busy puttin' a new hemp tie about that weazen of yours!

Now let the kids and the dog and bear alone, and help work the boat out into the current. We've got to be getting out of this!"

"You'll have to put the motors together before you move her," Sam replied.

The giant looked thoughtfully at the scattered fragments, then at Clay, still in the bunk, and scratched a thatch of red hair which looked like a hayrick.

"It seems to need puttin' together," he said, beckoning to Clay.

Then the boy saw that it was the intention of the outlaws to take possession of the _Rambler_ and shift her down stream before any of the boys returned. He thought of Alex. and Jule, marooned on that desolate point of land where the old house stood, of Case, trudging back from New Madrid with the repairs to find the boat gone!

He glanced about hopelessly, searching the sh.o.r.es of the bayou on the faint chance of seeing Alex. and Jule returning. Captain Joe was now regaining consciousness in the cabin, and Teddy was trying to interest him in a boxing match! Mose sat in a corner motionless, except that his eyes rolled about in anger or panic, the boy could not determine which.