"That's good sense, too," Clay agreed. "He can go away if he doesn't want to comply with our requirements. He may be only a tramp seeking a ride on the river. There are plenty of such characters here."

"I wish he would come aboard," Clay suggested, "and I'll see if I can't coax him," he added, turning toward the sh.o.r.e and making a trumpet of his hands. "Perhaps he already has a boat."

"h.e.l.lo, the sh.o.r.e," he called, "we're going away directly, so if you want to talk with us, you'd better row out."

"You always was the boy with a little prevarication on the end of your tongue!" suggested Alex. "We're not going away directly."

"Morning is directly," laughed Clay turning toward the sh.o.r.e again.

"Are you coming on board?" he asked.

"I haven't got any boat," was the reply. "Why can't you send one over?"

Clay's reply elicited a volley of epithets from the sh.o.r.e, and directly a great blaze sprang up not many feet distant from the water.

"Wreckers!" cried Captain Joe.

"Surest thing you know!" answered Clay. "The only wonder is that they didn't set their beacon going before."

"And this," Jule suggested, "seems to be more like real life. Things are livening up. They'll be going good by the time we get to St.

Luce."

"They may be going too fast!" warned the old captain.

CHAPTER XVII

CAPTAIN JOE'S NIGHT VISIT

"I really would like to know," Case observed, "whether those fellows are real wreckers, or whether they have been waiting there for the _Rambler_ to come back down the river. You know the story was printed that we were coming back to look up the lost channel."

"I don't know of any way of finding out unless we go to sh.o.r.e," Alex suggested, looking very much as if he would like to pay a visit to the blaze. "We might learn something of importance," he added rather coaxingly. "Suppose we do go and see."

"If you try to leave this boat to-night," Clay declared, "I'll tie you up with one of the anchor cables. We haven't got any time to waste hunting for you. So you stay on board the boat."

Alex did not exactly like the idea of going quietly to bed, but he was finally induced to do so.

"Now," said Captain Joe, as he stood alone on deck with Clay, "suppose we shove over to the other sh.o.r.e. Those fellows are wreckers, there is no doubt of that, and there is no sense in our mixing with them. If we stay here, they'll prowl around the _Rambler_ all night, and the bulldog will bark and the bear will growl, and it will be like sleeping in a boiler shop. What do you say to that?"

"That suits me exactly," Clay answered.

"Then I'll tell you what we'll do. From the point where we tie to-night, we'll pa.s.s down the river on the north side. That will bring us in behind Cartier island, and we can push up the west river instead of the east one, which seemed to be the center of activity when you were there."

"That's another good suggestion," Clay agreed.

"The west river," the old captain went on, "is a small stream in comparison with the other. There's a funny thing about it that I never could understand. I was in there once, landing supplies for a surveying party and it seemed to me then that that stream never grew to any size until it came within a mile or so of the isthmus which connects the peninsula with the main sh.o.r.e."

"Then there must be some tributary of good size there," said Clay.

"That's just the point," the captain went on. "There isn't any tributary of good size there. The peninsula is very narrow and slopes steeply to the west. In fact, the river to the east is several feet higher than the one on the west. That's one reason why I think there never was any channel through there."

"That is true," Clay answered. "You see, a channel through there, running at the rate the incline would naturally call for, would cut a hole through that neck of land about as wide as one of the main rivers. Why, it would drain the big river and turn all the water into the small stream. At least, it looks that way to me."

"Oh, I don't know about that," the captain answered, "there's a lot of water in that east river. Still, there's no channel there and never was so far as I can understand. Now, what I can't understand is, how this west river gets so big all at once. There may be a creek running in at the other side, but if there is, I never found it."

"You seem to understand that district pretty well," Clay laughed.

"Didn't I tell you I knew the whole St. Lawrence river south, north, and bottom?" demanded the captain. "Why, when I took that load of provisions in for the surveyors, there were Indians enough along the sh.o.r.e to give a city a population as large as Chicago's. And there were bears, and wolves, and deer, and beaver, and all sorts of wild creatures in the woods--thick as berries in a swamp."

During this conversation the two had been watching the sh.o.r.e where the light had sprung up. With a night gla.s.s they could see figures pa.s.sing in front of the blaze, but the beacon, if such it was, soon died down to embers, and nothing more was heard from the sh.o.r.e.

They both listened for the sound of oars in the river, but none came.

The tide was running in and the current was running out, with the result that great ranks of waves lay across the wide river like winnows in a field of grain. The wind blew sweeping up from the gulf, opposing the current, and, taken altogether, it was as dangerous and uncertain a night on the river as one could well imagine.

The _Rambler_ danced and bobbed about frightfully, drawing at her anchor and seeming to lunge forward in the waste of water. However, she was a staunch little craft, and the boys were used to her capers on the waves, and so paid little attention.

"They wouldn't dare to venture out in a boat to-night," was Clay's comment. "Besides," he added, "they know now that we are suspicious and watchful, and, unless I am greatly in error, we will hear no more of them."

"Shall we go across now?" asked the captain.

"I'm ready if you think we can make it."

The captain chuckled again and his shoulders shook.

"Make it?" he repeated. "Of course we can make it."

"The tide and the wind are fighting the current," Clay suggested, "and all we'll have to do will be to fight the waves."

It was rather rough getting to the north sh.o.r.e, but the trip was made without accident, except that Jule was thrown from his bunk and Captain Joe, the dog, and Teddy protested against the storm in ways best known to bulldogs and bears. Jule merely rubbed his eyes and crawled back into his bunk.

They found a place to anchor where the _Rambler_ would be protected during the night by a finger of rock running out into the river. All along the sh.o.r.e to the north was a heavy forest. The trees swayed and creaked in the wind, and now and then a crash from the interior told of the falling of some monarch of the forest which had doubtless withstood the storms of the St. Lawrence valley for hundreds of years.

It was a wild night on the river and on the land, but the boys slept peacefully until morning. As for Captain Joe, he declared that it reminded him so much of old nights on the banks of Newfoundland that he wanted to sit up and refresh his recollection of those adventurous times.

Clay rather suspected that the old captain was too apprehensive of evil from the wreckers, or accidents from the storm, to go to bed, but he let him have his way, and the hardy old fellow seemed as bright and active as ever in the morning. He even declined to go to the cabin for rest when the boys insisted that he ought to do so.

"We'll get rest enough when we get down to the west river," the captain smiled. "I can sleep in the woods."

"That's just where we won't get any rest," Jule urged.

"Huh," murmured Alex. "That's where I get my rest! The natives were so afraid that I'd tire myself walking around that they trussed me up like a hen. I'd just like to get a hold of some of those outlaws.

They're the limit--the worst I ever encountered."

"What did they do to you?" asked Captain Joe.