done lived on th’ levee!”

“From St. Louis, eh?” Clay said. “Where do you want to go?”

“I done hire out to you all,” was the reply.

“Of course!” Alex. laughed. “Didn’t we bring him up out of the waters? He’ll make a fine playmate for Teddy Bear!”

“If he doesn’t disappear, as that other waif did,” smiled Clay.

“Where do you suppose that boy went to?” asked Alex. “He never swam to shore, that is, to the other shore, and if he had landed on the pier when the men came on board they would certainly have seen him. I reckon the darkness just ate him!”

“And the man who came to speak a good word for him!” Clay went on. “If he had been the thief wanted for the Rock Island diamond and fur robbery, he couldn’t have been more mysterious. The boy said he would be made to tell about the robbery if they found him, and this man wanted to get him out of the way, so I guess we can put the pieces together and patch out the truth. The man is one of the robbers and the boy belongs to him!”

“If I had the Sherlock genius you toss out so easily,” Jule cut in, “I’d put it in a book. Why should the robber come to us to speak a good word for the boy? He ought to have known that we’d see through the game.”

“He may not be the robber at all,” Case observed. “There was some mystery connected with the two, and that’s all we know about it! The man is gone, and the boy is gone, and they are probably drowned, so we may as well count the story closed.”

“I’ll go you a dinner at the Bismark, as soon as we get back to Chicago,” Clay insisted, “that we find both the man and the boy before we get down to the Gulf!”

“You’re in for the dinners, then!” Case exclaimed. “And now,” he went on, “what are we going to do to-night? Are we going on down the river, or are we going to get into some cozy little slip and anchor for the second time?”

“I’m no good Solomon on an empty stomach,” laughed Clay. “Wait until Alex. has his fish supper served! You want some, too, don’t you Mose?” he added, turning to the little fellow, who stood gazing from the bear to the fish, now ready for the pan.

“I’s done gone empty cl’ar to mah toes!” was Mose’s reply.

After the fish had been eaten Mose was put to bed in one of the bunks, and the boys decided to go on down the river. They wanted to get away from any such entanglement as had been suggested by the visit of the officers and the search of the motor boat.

They made a long distance with little trouble, as they were going with the driftwood, and at daylight tied up in a small bayou, at the end of which a deserted old house stood lowering down upon the flood with a touch of mystery in the broken windows and overhanging eaves!

CHAPTER IV—TWO BOYS GET A TUMBLE

“I’d give a cent to know just where we are!” Jule declared, as he stood on the deck of the Rambler, waiting for Case’s call to breakfast, the advance odors of which were creeping out of the cabin, where Mose and Teddy Bear lay on a rug together, evidently the very best of friends!

“Give me the coin, then,” Alex. exclaimed. “We are about ten or fifteen miles below Hickman, Kentucky, and we are on the Missouri side; and there’s a loop of river which runs north a long way and comes back again. Some day the Mississippi will cut through the neck of land, and then there’ll be another large island, with houses set back from the river a long distance! Give me the cent!”

Jule gravely passed the coin over to Alex., who as gravely pocketed it, and drew Jule to a seat beside himself on the gunwale of the boat. Captain Joe came up to the boys as they sat there and wagged his tail, his nose pointing toward the deserted old house at the end of the bayou.

“Do you see what the bulldog wants?” Alex. asked, in a moment.

“He wants a run on shore,” replied Jule. “He wants to get off the boat and do stunts on the grass. I’m with him in that, too!”

“He’s pointing to the old house!” Alex. suggested, with a grin.

“Good idea!” winked Jule. “Suppose we go over to the ranch and see what sort of a place it is? We’ll just sneak off after breakfast and be back in an hour.”

“Right,” agreed Alex. “We may find a buried treasure! Or plunder from the Rock Island warehouse may be hidden in some dusty attic! What? That sounds like a story of John Paul Jones, out of a book!”

“I reckon all we’ll find will be rats,” the practical Jule replied. “But I like to ramble over old houses. It evidently used to stand on the bank of the river, but some washout left it back so far that it was deserted. It looks like there might be ghosts hiding in it right now! Do you hear anything?” the boy added, as he bent his ear toward the neglected mansion, sinking to decay now for many a long year. “Do you hear anything that sounds uncanny? I thought I heard a ghost call!”

“I half believe you mean it!” laughed Alex. “I believe you really think you hear something ghostly! If I were rich once for every ghost there is in the world, I wouldn’t have a cent to my name! What does this ghost call sound like?” added the boy.

“It sounded like a long, low call for help!” was the reply. “I believe all the calls from deserted houses are long and low, what?”

“Right you are!” Alex. answered. “Say, what’s the matter of taking Captain Joe with us when we go to the house? If there’s a ghost behind the casings, he’ll be certain to find and bring it out to us!”

“Then I’m strong for Captain Joe!” cried Jule. “We’ll bring the perturbed spirit on board and put it with our collection of animals! And there’s the breakfast call, at last!” he continued, whereat both boys rushed into the cabin.

Clay, who had been tinkering around the motors for half an hour, entered the cabin before breakfast was over, his face looking troubled, his clothing smeared with grease.

“I have an idea that we’ll stop here a few days until some one goes to one of the towns hereabouts and brings back some bolts,” he said. “The motors are out of whack, and ought not to be operated in the shape they are in.”

“I’ll go back to Hickman in the rowboat,” declared Case. “I have a notion that I’d like to see the town.”

“And row against that current?” asked Alex. “I see you doing it!”

“You couldn’t do it in a thousand years!” Jule observed.

“Well,” Case went on, looking at his map of the river, “there’s New Madrid, on the Missouri side. I might walk up there and back in a day.”

“Up there?” laughed Alex., looking over Case’s shoulder. “Why do you say up there? New Madrid is north from here, all right, but it is down stream, for all that!”

“Well, walk down there, then!” Case replied. “I want to learn something about that robbery anyway, and there may be news of it; besides, a walk along the river will be a sort of a picnic. It isn’t more than ten or twelve miles to the town.”

“Then you’d better arrange to return to-morrow,” Clay advised. “You are not used to such long walks. We are in no hurry to go on, for we have all the time there is until this time next year!”

So it was finally arranged that Case should walk down to New Madrid and get the needed repairs for the motors, while the others looked over the country which lay about them. When Alex. suggested the visit to the deserted house, Clay was anxious to become one of the party. He said he had had the same idea in his mind ever since seeing the old place.

“After Case goes,” Jule suggested, “that would leave only Mose and Teddy Bear on board the Rambler. I don’t believe it is safe to leave her