CASE HAS HIS DOUBTS

As may well be imagined, Case was waiting impatiently on board the _Rambler_ while the events described in the last chapter were taking place in the forest. It is one thing to face a desperate situation in the company of helpful friends. It is quite another to consider a grave peril alone, especially when chums are in danger.

Several hours pa.s.sed, and Case heard nothing from the wanderers in the forest. Then an unexpected visitor arrived. The boy saw an Indian canoe paddled swiftly up the river.

He had not had a good chance to observe the visitor who had cut the cable, thus bring about the meeting with the steamer people, but it was his opinion that the canoeist was none other than the boy who had given his name as Max Michel. He anxiously awaited the arrival of the craft.

"If that is Max," he thought, "he certainly has a well-developed nerve to come back to the _Rambler_ after doing what he did."

In a short time the canoe, coming steadily upstream, touched the hull of the motor boat, and its occupant clambered alertly to the deck.

Case stood for a moment regarding him with disapproval, no welcome at all in his face. The boy approached with a confident smile.

"What are you doing here?" demanded Case.

"I came," was the quick reply, "because I have news which may interest you. I know you have good reason to doubt my friendship, but I hope you will listen to me. It will be in your interest to do so."

"News of my friends?" asked Case quickly, forgetting in the impulse of the moment that the boy's information was more than likely to be misleading. "Have you seen any of the boys to-day?"

"No," was the slow reply, "but I have heard from them. They crossed the peninsula early this morning, were lured into a boat pa.s.sing down a parallel stream, and must now be somewhere on or near the St.

Lawrence."

"How do you know all this?" demanded Case half-angrily.

"Ever since the night I cut your cable," Max began, "I have been more than ashamed of myself. I was ordered to do the work, and believed that there was nothing else for me to do except to obey. I was not far from St. Luce yesterday when you boys went aboard the _Sybil_. The steamer touched at St. Luce and I afterwards heard the captain telling a friend of meeting you. Then I decided to return to you, if you were still in this vicinity."

"And so you come here and tell me a fairy tale about my chums?" Case exclaimed. "You don't expect me to believe a word you say, do you?"

"And yet it is the truth," Max insisted. "I was up this morning early, paddling across the St. Lawrence, for I knew from the Captain's conversation that you were over here. Not long ago I came upon a boat leaving the river to the west. From the man who was rowing, I learned that your friends had been attacked and captured."

Case still doubted. He did not like the look in the eyes of the boy.

He remembered the treacherous act which had sent the disabled _Rambler_ drifting down the St. Lawrence. He thought fast for a moment and then asked abruptly:

"Will you tell me what your interest is in this matter?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Why did you cut our cable?"

The boy hesitated a moment, glanced casually over the west bank of the stream and then lowered his eyes to the deck.

"I was ordered to do so," he said in a moment.

"Ordered to disable our motors and cut our cable?" demanded Case indignantly. "Don't you know that you might have been the cause of our death? Is everything you have told me to-day just as true as the fairy tales you told us that night? You may as well be frank."

Again the boy hesitated. To Case it seemed that he was listening for some sound or signal from the sh.o.r.e.

"Will you tell me," continued Case, "who it was that ordered you to cut our cable and disable our motors?"

The boy shook his head. His manner was now anxious and uneasy, and Case turned his own eyes toward the sh.o.r.e which was being watched so closely.

"I can't give you the name of my employers," the boy finally said.

"Then tell me this," insisted Case. "Why did the men who ordered you to do the work want it done?"

"I don't know," was the brief reply.

"I presume," Case went on, "that you would have destroyed the _Rambler_ with a stick of dynamite if you had been told to do so."

"I wouldn't have committed murder," was the quick reply.

"Now let us get back to your story of to-day," Case said. "Who was it that told you of the capture of my chums?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Was it one of your employers?"

"It was not."

"Was it a man with whom you are acquainted?" asked Case.

"I never saw him until to-day," he replied.

"How did he come to speak to you of the boys at all?"

"He mentioned that he had seen three boys evidently under a restraint in a boat with three men farther up the stream."

"So the boat held three men and three boys? Anyone else?"

"He did not mention any one else."

"And the six people were the sole occupants of the boat, were they?"

"That is what the man told me."

"Before you concocted this story," Case declared scornfully, "you ought to have jogged your memory a trifle. You saw Captain Joe and Teddy on board the _Rambler_ the night you cut our cable. Why didn't you add to your story and say that the dog and the bear were with the three boys?"

"The man I saw said nothing to me about the dog and the bear," Max insisted stubbornly. "I had only a moment's talk with him."

"And then you came directly to the _Rambler_ to tell me of the incident?"

"I came directly to the spot where I believed the _Rambler_ would be,"

was the answer. "Of course, I didn't know exactly where you were, but Captain Morgan said that when you left him it was your intention to ascend this stream. I was lucky in finding you."

"And now," Case asked, with a scornful smile on his lips, "what do you expect me to do under the circ.u.mstances? What would you advise?"

"I thought," replied Max, "that you would go down the river, and make your way to the mouth of the other stream."

"Why do your employers want me to leave my present location?" asked Case. "Do they want the boys to come out of the forest and find the _Rambler_ gone? Is that what you were sent here for?"