The visitor smiled brightly and sprang alertly to his feet. He looked from face to face for a moment, smiling at each in turn, and then pointed to a light canoe b.u.mping against the hull of the _Rambler_.

He was a lad of, perhaps, eighteen, slender, lithe, dark. His clothing was rough and not too clean. His manner was intended to be ingratiating, but was only insincere.

"What about you?" demanded Alex. "Do you think this is a pa.s.senger boat?"

"A long time ago," replied the visitor, speaking excellent English, "I read of the _Rambler_ and her boy crew in the Quebec newspapers. When I saw the boat here to-night, I ran away from my employer and came out to you. I want to go with you wherever you are going."

"You've got your nerve!" Alex cried.

"Oh, let him alone," Case interposed. "We've had a stranger with us on every trip, so why not take him along?"

Alex took the speaker by the arm and walked with him back to the cabin.

"Say," he said then, "this fellow may be all right, but I don't like the looks of his map."

"You'll wash dishes a week for that," Case announced. "You're getting so you talk too much slang. Anyway, you shouldn't say 'map'--that's common. Say you don't like his dial."

"Oh, I guess I'll have plenty of help washing dishes," Alex grunted.

"But what are we going to do with this boy?" he added.

Clay now joined the two boys in the cabin and asked the same question.

"It is my idea," he said, "that the appearance of this lad is in some way connected with the other events of the night."

"What did you find out about him?" asked Clay.

"He says his name is Max Michel, and that he lives at St. Luce," was the reply.

"Well," Clay decided, "we can't send him away to-night, so we'll give him a bunk and settle the matter to-morrow."

"I just believe," Alex interposed, "that this boy Max could tell us something about those two boats if he wanted to."

"I notice," Case put in, "that he's paying a good deal of attention to what is going on in the cabin just now. He may be all right, but he doesn't look good to me."

Clay beckoned to Jule, and the two boys entered the cabin together, closely followed by Captain Joe, who seemed determined to keep close watch on the strange visitor.

"How long ago did you leave St. Luce?" asked Clay of the boy.

"An hour ago," was the answer. "I rowed up the river near the sh.o.r.e where the current is not so strong and then drifted down to the motor boat. I called out to you before I landed, but I guess you did not hear."

Alex, standing at the boy's back and looking over his head, wrinkled a freckled nose at Clay and said by his expression that he did not believe what the boy was saying.

"Did you see a light on the point below St. Luce not long ago?"

continued Clay.

The boy shook his head.

"There are often lights there at night," he said. "Wreckers and fishermen build them for signals. But I saw none there to-night."

"What about the four-oared boat that left St. Luce not long ago?" Clay asked. "Do you know the men who were in it?"

"I didn't see any such boat," was the reply.

"Well, crawl into a bunk here," Clay finally said, "and we'll tell you in the morning what we are going to do."

The boy did as instructed, and was, apparently, soon sound asleep.

Then the boys went out to the deck again and sat in the brilliant moonlight watching the settlement on the right bank.

There is a railway station at St. Luce, and while they watched and talked, the shrill challenge of a locomotive came to their ears, followed by the low rumbling of a heavy train.

The prow light was out, and the cabin light was out, and the cabin was dark now, because when the boys had sought their bunks, a heavy curtain had been drawn across the gla.s.s panel of the door. From where the boys sat, therefore, they could see nothing of the interior of the cabin.

Five minutes after the door closed on the stranger, he left his bunk and moved toward the rear of the cabin. Against the back wall, stood a square wooden table, and upon this table stood an electric coil used for cooking. Above the table, was a small window opening on the after deck.

The catch which held the sash in place was on the inside and was easily released. The boy opened it, drew the swinging sash in, pa.s.sed through the opening, and sprang down to the deck.

Reaching the deck, the visitor, as though familiar with the situation, ran his hand carefully about his feet feeling for a closed hatch. He found it at last and, lifting it, peered into the s.p.a.ce set aside for the electric batteries and the extra gasoline tanks.

Reaching far under the planking, he found what he sought--the wire connecting the electric batteries with the motors. Listening for a moment to make sure that his motions were not being observed, he drew a pair of wire clippers from a pocket and cut the supply wire. Only for the fact that the lights on the boat were all out, this villainous act would at once have been discovered. As it was, the boys remained at the prow believing the visitor was still asleep in his bunk.

This act of vandalism accomplished, the boy dropped softly over the stern into his canoe, still trailing in the rear of the motor boat.

Once in the canoe, he laid the paddle within easy reach and propelled the boat along the hull of the _Rambler_, toward the prow with his hands. Once or twice discovery seemed to the boy to be certain, for Captain Joe came to the gunwale of the boat and sniffed suspiciously over the rail.

Once, Clay left his place at the prow and looked over into the stream, but the moon was in the south and a heavy shadow lay over the water on the north side, so the dark object slipping like a snake to do an act of mischief reached the prow unseen.

At that moment the boys left the prow and moved toward the cabin door.

In another instant they would have entered and noted the absence of their guest, but Alex paused and pointed to lights moving in the village of St. Luce.

"There's something going on over there," he said "and I believe it has something to do with what we've been b.u.mping against. There's the letter from the canoe, and the warning from the boat, and the boy dropping out of the darkness on deck, and the signal lights, and now the stir in the village. Some one who wishes us ill is running the scenes to-night, all right."

While the boys stood watching the lights of St. Luce, Max caught the manila cable which held the motor boat and drew his canoe up to it.

Cutting the cable, strand by strand, so as to cause no jar or sudden lurching of the boat, he left it slashed nearly through and, leaving the strain of the current to do the rest, worked back through the shadow and struck out up stream.

Standing in the door of the cabin, the boys felt the boat sway violently under their feet, then they knew from the shifting lights in the village that they were drifting swiftly down with the current.

Clay sprang to the motors, but they refused to turn.

Case hastened to the prow and lifted the end of the cable. There was no doubt that it had been cut. Clay made a quick examination of the motors and saw that the electrical connection had been broken. Then Jule called out in alarm that they were drifting directly upon a rocky island.

CHAPTER III

ARRESTED FOR PIRACY

The _Rambler_, drifting broadside to the current, threatened to strike full upon a rocky promontory projecting from the island which lay in the course of the boat. In vain Case tugged at the tiller ropes. There was no steerage way, and the boat was beyond control.