"Cook it any way you want to," Clay said, "only don't m.u.f.f it the way Case does when he tries to make biscuits. We'll be hungry."

Taking down the hammocks, the boys moved back to the _Rambler_. Clay, Alex, and Jule, after listening in vain for a time for more signals from the woods, finally went to their bunks, leaving Case sitting on the deck, across which a great tree on the east bank threw a long blur of shade.

Clay and Jule were soon sound asleep, but Alex lay awake listening.

There was a notion at the back of his brain that the signals heard had been treated too lightly. He knew that Clay, always active and ready for any emergency, considered the party secure in midstream, but he was by no means satisfied that the best steps for the protection of the boat had been taken.

After a time he arose, dressed himself, and softly slipped out on deck, leaving the rest sleeping in the cabin.

"It isn't morning yet," Case said, speaking out of the shadow. "Why don't you go back to bed? You'll be sleepy to-morrow."

"Have you heard any more owl talk?" asked Alex.

"Not a line," replied Case. "Go on back to bed."

Alex did go back to bed, but could not sleep. Presently the long-expected owl-call came from the north, and then Teddy rubbed his soft nose against the boy's hand.

"What do you want, old man?" whispered Alex. "Does that hooting warn you of danger, too?"

The cub put his paws upon the edge of the bunk and tried to answer in bear talk that it did.

"All right," Alex said, "I'll just go out and see about it."

When he reached the deck for the second time, Case stood at the gunwale listening. The call came again from the woods.

"Now you hear it, don't you?" asked Alex, scornfully. "I reckon you fellows would sit around here and let those wops carry off the boat."

"Well, haven't they got to show up before we can do anything to them?"

asked Case reproachfully. "I guess they have."

"I'd like to know what they are doing," Alex wondered, "and I just believe I could sneak out and learn something about it. It makes me nervous, waiting here for them to get in the first blow."

"If I had a house and lot for every time you've been lost on our river trips," Case grinned, "I'd own the biggest city in the world. You go back to bed, or I'll get Clay out here to tie you up."

Teddy now came sniffing where the two boys stood, and, lifting his paws to the gunwale, looked over in the forest.

"See that!" Alex exclaimed. "Even the bear knows there is something wrong on! If you'll keep that twirler of yours still for a little while, I'll go and see what it is."

"You're the wise little sleuth!" Case declared. "Go on back to bed and dream that you're Nick of the Woods."

"Tell you what," Alex said, "we'll tie a line to the rowboat, and I'll row ash.o.r.e, then you pull the boat back, and I'll creep out in the thicket and see what I can discover. I believe those outlaws will gather around the campfire. Anyway, they're foolish if they don't."

"If you take my advice," Case said, "you won't go, but if you insist on it, I'll draw the boat back, for our own protection."

Very reluctantly, then, Case a.s.sisted in getting the boat into the river, found a long line to attach to the prow, and helped the boy away on his journey. He felt guilty for aiding in the adventure.

Alex landed in a thicket almost straight west of the _Rambler_, and at once secreted himself. No signals had been heard for some moments, and the boy believed that he had reached the sh.o.r.e without attracting attention. Case drew the boat back and sat waiting.

Alex remained perfectly still in his hiding-place for some moments.

There was only the noises of river and forest. To the west, the embers of the campfire made a faint red glow in the moonlight.

Just as the boy was about to move out of the thicket, he heard a heavy splash in the river, followed by words of command and entreaty from Case. The splashing continued, and presently the bushes at the edge of the stream were moved by an entering body.

"That's Captain Joe!" thought Alex. "He's always ready for a run in the woods. I suppose I ought to send him back."

But it was not Captain Joe that thrust a wet nose into Alex's hand. It was Teddy, the bear cub, and his greeting was so friendly and sincere that all thoughts of sending him back to the boat vanished from the boy's mind. Teddy shook the water from his coat like a great dog, and cuddled up to the boy as if thanking him.

"You're a runaway bear," Alex whispered to the cub, "and I ought to send you back, but I'll just see if you know how to behave in the kind of society I am going to mix with. Will you be good?"

Teddy declared in his best bear talk that he would be good, and the boy and the cub lay in the thicket, still listening, for a long time before moving. Then Alex crept toward the campfire.

When he came to a considerable rise in the center of the ground between the two streams, he found that the ground was broken and rocky. It seemed to him that a great crag had formerly risen where he stood, and that some distant convulsion of nature had shattered it.

To the south, between the rivers and at no great distance from the egg-shaped peninsula, ran a long, rocky ridge. Making his way to this, he secreted himself in the shadow of a boulder and settled down to watch and listen.

After a time Teddy grew impatient at the inactivity thus forced upon him, and began moving restlessly about.

"Bear!" warned Alex, "if you make any more racket here, I'll send you back to the boat. We're supposed to be sleuthing!"

Teddy evidently did not like the idea of being sent back to the boat, or of keeping still either, so he almost immediately disappeared, notwithstanding Alex's efforts to detain him by main force. The boy called to him in vain.

"Now," thought Alex, "the cub has gone and done it! He'll thrash around in the woods and scare my outlaws away. I wish I had tied him up on the boat. I might have known he would make trouble."

The boy waited a long time, but the cub did not return. Now and then he could hear him moving about in the thicket.

"He's just laughing in his sleeve at me!" complained the boy. "I wish I had hold of him!"

Directly a sound other than that made by the bear came to the ears of the listening boy. Some one was creeping towards his shelter. He could see no one, for the shadows were thick at the point from which the sounds proceeded, but presently, he heard a voice.

"They went back to the boat," some one said gruffly.

"That's all the better for us," another spoke.

"I don't know about that," the first speaker said.

"Why, we'll just cut her out and take boys and boat and all."

"That's easier said than done," was the reply. "Those boys are no spring chickens. They have guns and they know how to use them."

"Well," the other chided, "it isn't my fault that they went back to the boat. If you hadn't been giving your confounded signals, they would have slept by the fire and everything would have been easy."

Alex listened with his heart beating anxiously. There was no longer any doubt that the right construction had been placed on the signals which had been heard. The outlaws who had attacked them in the cove were now on the peninsula, ready to make trouble.

While the boy listened for further conversation, a rustling in the thicket at the base of the cliff told him that Teddy, the cub, was still in that vicinity. He chuckled at the thought which came to him.

"I wish I had the little rascal here," he mused. "I think he might be able to do something in the line of giving those fellows exercise! I wish I could get over to him."

The boy started in the direction of the sound, but paused when he heard one of the men saying:

"Where are the others?"