Anchored there, in a sheltered cove on the north shore of the river, was a trim little launch. Case could see four men moving about in the cockpit at the rear of the little trunk cabin. He immediately directed the _Rambler_ toward the craft and hailed across the water. He was answered promptly.
"The _Rambler_ it is," answered Case. "Are you looking for her?"
"Not especially," was the reply. "We were told that you were here by Captain Morgan, whom we saw up the river."
"Come aboard," invited Case, and in a few moments two bright-looking young men ascended from a small boat to the deck of the _Rambler_.
"I am Joseph Fontenelle," one of the young men said, "and this is my friend, Sam Howard. We were just going up the river when we saw you coming down. Are you alone on board?"
"My friends are somewhere back in the forest," Case explained, certain that it was safe to trust the visitors. "I seem to have lost them."
"Then we have probably arrived just in time," Fontenelle went on. "As you probably know from my name, we are here on the old search for the charter. Captain Morgan, I am told, related the story to you. For myself, I have little faith in the quest, but father insists that I make a try to solve the mystery every summer. This is my third visit to what we call Cartier island. I expect to make them annually as long as father lives."
"You have no faith in the story of the lost charter and the missing family jewels?" asked Case.
"Oh, they were lost, without doubt, and possibly in this country, but there is no clew whatever to their whereabouts."
Case was wondering if the Fontenelles had a copy of the crude map which had been so mysteriously brought to the _Rambler_. He was wondering, too, if it would be safe for him to tell this youthful representative of the French family all that he knew of the two communications and the attacks which had been made on the _Rambler_. The question was virtually settled by Fontenelle himself.
"I am told," the young man said, "that you boys were placed in peril by being mistaken for us."
"We had a scrap with river pirates, if that is what you mean," Case replied, "and Captain Morgan helped us to get away from them."
"I'm afraid," Fontenelle went on, "that the men you term 'river pirates' are pirates only for the purpose of this occasion. We have always been opposed in our quest for what father calls the lost channel."