"Well, Captain Joe, you're just the identical man we've been looking for," cried Clay. "Several hundred years ago an old Frenchman by the name of Cartier mislaid a channel down the river. Now we want you to help us find that channel!"

"Oh, you want to find a channel, do you?" laughed Captain Joe. "Well, now, I'll tell you, boys, if that channel has been open at any time within the past hundred years, I can find it. Of course I wasn't on the river as long ago as that, but my old dad was, and he taught me to read the St. Lawrence like a boy reads the stories of Captain Kidd."

"That is fine!" the boys exclaimed in a breath.

Then Clay laughed and nudged his companions and said:

"Captain Joe, did you ever hear anybody say that this is a mighty small world? If so, do you think it's true?"

"It is bigger than I have ever been able to get over," replied Captain Joe, not understanding. "I've seen quite a lot of it, but not all."

Then Clay told the captain of their adventures on the St. Lawrence, showing him the two mysterious communications, with the understanding that he was never to mention their existence to any one.

"And so there really is a lost channel?" asked Captain Joe.

"You bet there is! There is more than one lost channel. Go bite him doggie!"

The voice came from the doorway, and the next moment, Alex and Captain Joe, the bulldog, came tumbling into the room.

"Say, my namesake is getting to be some dog," shouted the Captain, after the greetings were over. "He's big enough to find a lost channel anywhere. And he looks fierce enough, too."

"He's always perfectly willing to do his share of the looking," Alex grinned. "And we're perfectly willing to give him a chance to help."

"Then I'll take him into partnership," Captain Joe, the man, said, "and we'll go out hunting for what you seek. If there is a lost channel anywhere it will go hard if we don't find it!"

CHAPTER XV

THROUGH THE FAMOUS RAPIDS

A special bunk, the softest and springiest that could be made, was fitted up for Captain Joe in the cabin that night. The old fellow so enjoyed visiting with the boys that it was late before they went to sleep, and so the sun was well up when they left their beds in the morning.

"Now," Clay said, after all had indulged in a short swim in the river, "we're going to celebrate the arrival of Captain Joe by one of Alex's beefsteak breakfasts at a restaurant. Captain Joe has traveled so far to see us that we're not going to take any chances on having him poisoned by Case's cooking."

"Now look here, boys," Captain Joe remonstrated, "I've had a good many restaurant meals along the South Branch since you boys deserted me, and a chef has been cooking for me on the Rutland boat, so I propose that we get breakfast right here, on the _Rambler_. It will be a novelty for me, anyway."

"What would you like, Captain?" asked Alex.

"Well," said Captain Joe almost smacking his lips, "you know the kind of pancakes they serve at the Bismark, Chicago? They're half an inch thick, you know, and as large as the bottom of a milk pan. Cost a quarter apiece, and a fellow doesn't want anything more to eat all day! Now, you go ahead and make pancakes like we used to get at the Bismark."

"And eggs, and ham, and beans, and coffee, and fried potatoes, and canned peaches?" asked Case. "We're sure going to celebrate, Captain Joe."

"Well boys," said the old captain, "if you want to go and make provision tanks of yourselves, you can do it, but for my part, I'm going to be careful in my eating, as I'm getting old! Just rig me up a simple little meal consisting of eight or ten of those twenty-five cent pancakes and half a dozen eggs and three or four cups of coffee, and I'll try to worry through the day."

"I don't see how you can get along with anything less than a dozen pancakes and a gallon of coffee," laughed Clay, "and I'll go on sh.o.r.e and buy a box of the finest cigars to be had in Ogdensburg."

Captain Joe held up a warning finger.

"Now look here, boys," he said, "you know how I used to pull away at that dirty old pipe on the South Branch. I used to be ashamed of myself, smoking up your quarters, so after you left I quit the weed entirely. I haven't smoked a pipe or cigar for a long time," he added, proudly.

And so the breakfast was prepared as Captain Joe directed. The boys set out what little honey Teddy hadn't succeeded in getting hold of, and the pancakes were greatly enjoyed. But the Captain didn't finish his stunt.

"You boys are mighty good to an old man like me," he said.

"Mighty good!" repeated Clay. "Don't you remember when some sneak stole all the money we had been saving for a year to take us on the Amazon trip? Don't you remember how we hustled and got a little more together, and how you were afraid we wouldn't have enough, and might go broke in the Andes, and you took two hundred dollars and put it in a packet and told us to open it when we got into trouble? There is nothing on this boat you can't have, Captain Joe."

"Well," said the old man, "I didn't need the money, and, besides, I got it back. It didn't cost me anything to lend it."

"We needed it, though," grinned Alex, "and we might have been back there yet if we hadn't had it. You're the luckiest man I know of or it would never have been returned. And we were lucky, too."

"And now, if you don't mind," said Captain Joe, "we'll cut all this talk out. I'm going to stay with you boys just as long as you'll let me, and I don't want to hear any more talk about that consarned two hundred dollars. I've heard too much already."

"We think of it every time we see the white bulldog," laughed Case.

"By the way," said the Captain, "I've got that two hundred dollars in my jeans this minute, and if you should happen to want any of it just let me know. I really don't know what to do with it."

"Pigs will be flying when we use any more of your money, Captain Joe,"

Alex smiled. "We've got plenty of our own."

After breakfast, with Captain Joe at the helm, the boat was turned toward the Great Lakes. It was seven o'clock when they left Ogdensburg and at ten they were at Alexandria Bay.

"Suppose we keep on the Canadian side going up," Captain Joe suggested, "and then, when we come back, we can take the American side."

"Can you take the boat up and back without knocking off any of these headlands?" asked Alex with a wink at the Captain.

"Look here, young man," replied the Captain not at all offended, "I was dipping the water into this river before you were born. I can take this boat within an inch of every island and crag and headland between here and Lake Ontario and never sc.r.a.pe off an ounce of paint. I've sailed on the ocean, too, and all up and down the Great Lakes. This St. Lawrence river was always like a little pet kitten to me."

According to this suggestion, the captain left Alexandria Bay to the south and proceeded over to the Canadian side. The boat was now just starting in on its run through the famous Thousand Islands.

Many times it seemed to the boys as if Captain Joe intended to run the craft directly through some of the magnificent cottages located high above the river, but always the boat turned just in time to keep in foot-clear water. The boys stood leaning on the gunwale for hours watching the splendid panorama of the river.

There were islands rich with verdure; there were islets brown and rocky, there were great level places hemmed in by the river where magnificent summer residences showed against the beauty of the landscape.

Now and then summer tourists hailed the _Rambler_ from the river, and occasionally girls and boys ran down the island piers to greet her with the waving of flags. It was a glorious trip.

Captain Joe explained many features of the stream as they pa.s.sed up, and as long as the boys lived they remembered the shimmer of the sun on the island foliage, the white-fringed waves rumpled by the light wind, and the voice of the kind old man telling them the experiences of a life time.

Just before sundown, after one of the pleasantest days they ever experienced, the boys reached Kingston. Captain Joe seemed disinclined to leave the boat that night, and so the boys spent three hours wandering up and down the streets of the historic old city. Off to the west lay the famous Bay of Quinte. Farther south was Sackett's Harbor, while between the two lay Wolfe island, stuck into the mouth of the St. Lawrence river like a great plug. The boys enjoyed the night ramble immensely.

"Now, Captain Joe," Clay said in the morning, "suppose we circle Wolfe island, inspect the light house at Cape Vincent, and spend part of a day at Sackett's Harbor? I don't know of any better way to spend the next twelve hours than in making a trip like that."

"Sackett's Harbor was a military point during the last war with Great Britain," Jule said, "and I'd like to look over the town."

"Nothing much doing there now in the way of guns and soldiers,"

Captain Joe said, "but, as you say, it would pay you well to spend a day on the waters in this vicinity. You may never have the chance again."