It was some moments before the anchor could be lifted and the _Rambler_ turned and sent down stream, so the _Cartier_ was halfway to the little bay running in behind the Peninsula before the boys caught up with her.

"She won't get away again," Captain Joe declared shortening up the line and making it fast to the after deck cleats of the motor boat.

"We haven't got any time to go chasing runaway launches!"

As the old captain spoke, Case laid a hand on his arm and pointed to the projection on the peninsula behind which Captain Joe had listened on the night he had left the _Rambler_ during his watch.

"There's a blaze over there," the boy said. "They must have a lot of men here to keep a force over there and another one between the two rivers."

"Young man," Captain Joe replied, "the man who is responsible for this whole mix-up is over there on the point, with a band of cutthroats."

"Why don't they go up and help the others?" asked Jule.

"It's just this way," Captain Joe replied, "we disappointed them very much when we got the _Cartier_ out of the water. That rascal on the point wanted to have the pleasure of raising the boat himself."

"Then why didn't he do it?" asked Alex. "He had time enough before we got here."

"I don't know why he didn't," answered the captain, "but he didn't, and now he's sore because we got to it first. It seems to me that he might have ordered his wrecking apparatus here and got the boat out before we arrived."

"What do you think he wants of the launch?" Case asked. "According to all accounts, he's rich enough to buy a dozen."

"I can tell you about that," Captain Joe replied with a grin. "You remember when I stood watch one night, and you all said I looked sleepy the next day. Well, that night, I paddled over to the point and heard what those people were talking about. There is something on board the _Cartier_ they want. I couldn't understand exactly what they said about it, but it is something in some way connected with a safe."

"The safe on the wall in the lost channel!" laughed Alex. "They think Fontenelle knows how to get to the safe if he can only get to the lost channel first."

"Well, we got to the launch first, anyway," Jule suggested. "And it strikes me that we'd better go aboard and look her over. Did you see anything remarkable when you were there, Alex?" he added.

"Didn't see a thing," was the reply. "I flopped out of the water into the c.o.c.kpit and never even looked inside the cabin. I wish now that I had."

"Come on, then, let's you and I take a look through the cabin while Captain Joe and Case run the _Rambler_ back to her old position," Jule suggested.

The two boys sprang down into the c.o.c.kpit, paused a moment to get their balance and opened the cabin door. As they did so, a scrambling noise was heard inside, and both were knocked nearly off their feet as a body launched against them, turned to the railing and shot over into the river.

From his position on the deck where he had been thrown by the impact of the collision, Alex looked up at Jule with a whimsical smile on his face.

"Did you see that?" he asked.

"I felt it," Jule replied, rubbing his head.

"What did it feel like?" asked Alex

"Like a battering ram," was the reply.

"Well," Alex said, "it might have been a battering ram, but it looked to me like Max, and it's dollars to apples that he caused the _Cartier_ to start downstream. A few pulls from the water would have started the line running out."

"That's just it!" Jule exclaimed. "That's exactly the idea!"

Captain Joe now leaned over the gunwale of the _Rambler_ and cried out:

"Which one of you boys fell overboard?"

"That was Max," Alex replied. "He's been here in the cabin of the launch for n.o.body knows how long, ransacking the lockers and destroying papers. He must have come aboard about as soon as it was lifted out of the water. The scamp certainly keeps busy, anyway."

Captain Joe pa.s.sed over to the launch, and a long search was made through the owner's secretary and the drawers and boxes containing doc.u.ments. The papers were wet, of course, and many of them were badly torn, but the purport of each was by no means doubtful. The great ma.s.s consisted of bills, newspaper clippings, personal letters and the hundred and one memoranda made by the captain and owner of a pleasure launch.

"I guess we'll have to give it up," the captain said, after a time.

"There's one good thing about it, and that is that Max didn't meet with any more success than we did."

"How do you know?" asked Case.

"Because," answered the Captain, "he would have been off the boat before we ever got to it."

"Perhaps he wasn't here as long as you think he was," Alex put in.

"Clay and I saw him up in the woods when we first went ash.o.r.e."

The papers were spread out neatly and left to dry, and everything in the drenched cabin placed in as good shape as possible. Then the boys all returned to the _Rambler_, now nearing her old position in the west river.

Much to the surprise of all on board, there were no signs of the outlaws when the boat came to her old anchorage. Night was falling and there were no indications of hostile influences anywhere. Before darkness settled down over the scene, the boys drew the _Rambler_ a little farther up the stream and prepared to pa.s.s a watchful and anxious night.

Alex proposed that he go ash.o.r.e with the bulldog and make an effort to find Clay, but the proposition was instantly vetoed by the others.

"You'll get lost yourself," Case declared, "and we'd have two boys to look up instead of one. I think we'd better all stay on the boat."

"And that's good sense, too," Captain Joe put in. "Clay knows where we are, and he'll come to us if he can get away. If he doesn't come during the night, we'll get out after him in the morning."

"He may be waiting for darkness," Case suggested. "In that case, he ought to be here soon. He must be hungry."

"He surely will, and we'll keep supper waiting for him in this cabin all night," said Alex "When the outlaws had me pinched, they didn't give me anything to eat. I'll get even for that!"

The night pa.s.sed slowly, drearily, and Clay did not come. As the reader understands, all through the dark hours, the boy lay bound in a tent not far from the west sh.o.r.e of the east river.

Shortly after daylight, breakfast being over, the boys began planning for a visit to the sh.o.r.e.

The canoe and the rowboat were both on the bank still in plain sight.

"You swim over and get the boats, Jule," Case said. "You haven't had as many open air baths as we have since we started on this trip."

"Now, boys," interposed Captain Joe, "I wouldn't touch those boats if I were you. If there are any outlaws in those woods at all, they're watching those boats. The first boy that swims up to one of them will be captured."

"Then we've all got to swim," declared Case ruefully.

"We're getting used to it this time," cried Alex

"I don't believe there's any one over there," Jule said. "They wouldn't keep still so long."

"I notice that you don't get your head up above the gunwale very often," Alex laughed.

"Look here, boys," Captain Joe said, pointing out of the cabin window.

"Here's a place where the river widens without any good excuse for doing so. I talked to Clay about that, and his idea was that an underground stream runs in in this vicinity. Now, your eyes are better than mine. Look upstream and see if you can observe any current which might be made by the flowing in of a subterranean river."