"I guess Clay will think we have been going some to get that boat off the bottom," laughed Case.
Captain Joe looked at his watch, his face clouding as he did so.
"Why, look here," he said. "We've been a long time on this job. It is after one o'clock."
"We might have known that by the tide coming in," Case said.
"I wasn't thinking about the water," the captain laughed. "I was thinking about Clay and Alex. Now, where do you suppose those two scamps are? They ought to have been here long ago."
"Perhaps they've found the lost channel!" Jule put in.
"It is more likely they found a nest of outlaws they couldn't get away from," was Case's idea of the situation. "I think we ought to do something about it right now," he added.
"I am afraid," Captain Joe said, poking a stubby finger into Case's side, "that it takes you boys about half your time to find each other when you go off on these river trips. First one gets lost and then the other."
"That's all right," Case replied, "but every time a fellow gets lost he butts into valuable information. Clay may pick up those Fontenelle diamonds while he's gone, or find the lost charter."
"It's up to us to do something," Jule insisted. "After dinner, we'll go out on the peninsula and see what we can discover if Captain Joe will remain on the boat. We won't be gone long."
Dinner was hastily prepared and hastily eaten, and then Case and Jule rowed to the shore in the _Rambler's_ boat, the canoe having been left on the bank by Clay. The captain saw them disappear in the thicket and then sat down in the cabin to watch and wait.
In less than half an hour, he heard shouts on the shore, and then two figures came plunging down the high bank into the river some distance above the location of the _Rambler_.
The captain reached for his gun and stood waiting, fearful at first that a bold attempt to board the _Rambler_ was being made, but as the two figures in the water came closer, he saw Case and Jule alternately swimming on the surface and diving. The reason for this apparently strange conduct on the part of the boys was soon discovered, for bullets began whistling about their heads and about the deck of the _Rambler_.
However, the swimmers reached the deck of the boat unharmed and dropped down behind the gunwales.