“And Jule is still there with those thieves?” asked Case.
“He is unless he’s made a dive for liberty,” replied Clay.
“You say the boat was drifting the last you saw of her?” asked Hank.
“Well, then,” the mountaineer suggested, “we’d better be moving on down. Was she on this side of the river or the other?”
“Pretty close to the Kentucky shore,” answered the boy.
“Then you’re in luck!” the mountaineer laughed. “There’s a sand bar down here, just around the point, that will be sure to catch her. You may have my head for a football if we don’t see her wedged against that bar as soon as we come in sight of it.”
After half an hour’s difficult walking along the river bank, winding far into the river to escape coves, crossing little runs on fallen trees, they passed around the point of the bend and looked down a long sweep of river.
“Now, what do you think of that?” demanded Clay.
“Rotten!” Alex and Case declared in a breath. What the boys saw was the _Rambler_ lying at anchor, perhaps forty rods away with the _Hawk_ bearing down upon her.
“It looks to me,” the mountaineer said, “as if those pirates were bound to have that boat.”
“And it looks to me,” Case put in, “as if they’re going to get her, too! They seem to have the top hand in this game.”
“I don’t know about that,” declared the mountaineer. “I don’t think we ought to let those brigands run away with that boat.”
“Well, then, suggest something!” urged Clay.
Before Hank could speak again, the _Rambler_’s anchor was hauled in and she was headed directly for the shore almost at the exact spot where the four stood. The _Hawk_ steamed steadily after her.
“What’s she doing that for?” demanded Case.
“That boat of yours,” suggested the mountaineer, “will almost float in a heavy dew, while the _Hawk_ as you call her requires a considerable depth of water.”
“That’s shows that you’re not familiar with boating,” he said, in a moment. “That old barge out there will float in twenty-five inches of water, while the _Rambler_, sticking her keel down like a knife, requires at least thirty-five inches. I guess the truth of the matter is,” he added, “that the pirates on board the _Rambler_ are coming this way in the hope of dodging the _Hawk_.”
“Why don’t they do a little shooting?” Case asked. “Those fellows aren’t usually so saving of their ammunition.”