The River Motor Boat Boys on the St. Lawrence Part 16

"And he came back here and helped you out, too, it seems," Case said.

"I should think he was some dog!"

"And Teddy helped, too," Clay laughed. "We had a show here for a little while that was worth the price of admission."

"It didn't look funny to me," Jule protested. "I was scared stiff most of the time."

After Alex and Case had replaced a broken globe on the prow light, told the story of their adventures, and explained that the chief of police had requested the privilege of looking over the boat in the morning, the boys moved the _Rambler_ to a slip farther down the river and went to bed, Jule remaining on watch for the remainder of the night. The day had been a busy one and they were all tired.

Alex was out first in the morning, poking along the water front in the canoe which Max had deserted. After a time Clay came out of the cabin of the _Rambler_ and called to him.

"Got a fish, Alex?"

Alex shook his head.

"The fish won't bite my hook this morning!" he shouted back.

"Well," Clay returned, "there's a gudgeon up on sh.o.r.e that evidently wants to get hold of your hook, and you with it."

Alex turned quickly and looked up the slip at the foot of which the canoe lay. He was just in time to see Max and another boy about his size disappearing behind a collection of goods' boxes.

"Why didn't you shoot him?" Alex called out to Clay. "You saw him first. He ought to be shot for what he did last night."

Captain Joe now came out on the deck, yawning and stretching, and elevated his fore feet to the gunwale of the boat. Clay patted him on the head and pointed to the goods' boxes behind which Max had disappeared.

"Do you think, Captain Joe," he said to the dog, "that you could go and get a wharf rat this morning? I think there's one behind that pile of boxes. You better go and see, anyway."

Of course the dog did not understand all that was said to him--although the boys sometimes insisted that he did--but he did know what the pointing finger meant. He was over the gunwale in an instant, tearing up the side of the slip, barking and growling as he went.

"You'll get that dog killed yet," Alex called out to Clay. "That wharf rat of a Max is just like a snake. You don't want to get near him unless you step squarely on his head."

Both boys whistled return orders to the dog, but he would not come back. He seemed to remember that an old enemy was near at hand and turned the corner of the heap of boxes with a vicious snarl.

The next moment, Max appeared at the top of the heap, fending off the dog with a board he had ripped from a box.

"Call off your dog!" he shouted. "I want to get my canoe. You get out of it, kid, and leave it tied to the slip."

"If you live long enough to see me give you this canoe," Alex laughed, "you'll be older than Noah before you die, and have whiskers forty feet long."

"I'll set the police on you!" threatened Max.

"You tried that last night," grinned Alex.

"Come on down here," urged Clay. "I'd like to know what kind of a penitentiary you received your early education in."

"You'd like to have me come down there, wouldn't you?" sneered Max.

"You think you've got the police on your side, don't you? But I know a couple of detectives that will fix you, all right. You needn't think I'm going to let you run away with my canoe."

"How'd you get up the river so quickly?" asked Clay. "Did you dive in east of the peninsula and swim under water to Quebec?"

"Oh, I got up on a steamer, all right," was the reply, "and I've been here waiting for you ever since."

"Do you happen to have a sore head this morning?" taunted Alex. "You must have got a b.u.mp or two last night."

"You'll get two for every one I got," Max shouted, angrily. "Are you going to give me that canoe? I'm going to have it, you know."

Alex deliberately paddled the canoe over to the _Rambler_, secured it with a light line, climbed to the deck, and set the motors in motion.

Max yelled out a few threatening sentences and disappeared.

"We may as well be going up to the old pier," he said, "for this dandy chief of police I discovered last night will be down to see us before long. He's a right good fellow, that chief is."

"You better hold up a minute," Jule announced,

"Captain Joe is still behind those boxes. If Max could capture him, he'd have him in all the dog fights in Quebec."

But Max was at this time taking to his heels up the street which ran down to the slip; and Captain Joe soon made his appearance, looking very much discouraged. He was taken on board, dripping with water, and Teddy received quite a bath by approaching him too suddenly. The bulldog enjoyed that.

The chief of police made his appearance soon after the boys had partaken of breakfast, and sat down to talk over the events of the preceding night.

"This boy, Max," he explained, "is one of the queerest customers we have anything to do with. He lives in the streets, apparently without money or friends, and yet he frequently appears at a swell hotel handsomely dressed and with plenty of money in his pockets. He seems to have been well educated, as you have probably noticed from his conversation."

"He talks like a graduate," admitted Clay.

"Yes, and he's one of the sharpest little chaps in the city. We are certain that he has had a hand in several bold robberies, yet it has up to this time been impossible to convict him. He is usually defended by first-cla.s.s criminal lawyers, and his wharf rat companions seem to be very desirable witnesses for him."

"Isn't it possible," asked Clay, "that the boy lives along the river front for some well defined, perhaps criminal, purpose of his own?"

"I've often thought of that," answered the chief, "for he always takes great pains to make friends of the creatures of the underworld. Now and then he disappears from the city for a few days, or weeks, but always comes back to his old haunts."

"Of course," Clay said, "you are familiar with the Fontenelle land claim and the story of the lost charter and the missing family jewels?"

"Oh, yes," answered the chief, smiling tolerantly, "every man, woman and child in Quebec knows all about the Fontenelle case. Old man Fontenelle is almost a monomaniac on the subject of the lost charter.

He has spent thousands of dollars searching for it and claims that he would have discovered it long ago only for the active and criminal opposition of men who might lose heavily if it came again into his possession."

"And the story of the lost channel?" asked Clay.

"There is a queer story of a lost channel," the chief laughed, "but I'm afraid that it will always be a lost channel."

"But Fontenelle is continually trying to locate it," suggested Clay.

"Yes, but he has no more idea where to look for it than a child in a cradle. There is a place down the river where he thinks it might once have existed, but he has no clews of any kind."

"Hasn't even a map?" asked Clay, resolved to know exactly, as far as possible, what knowledge the Fontenelles had of the lost channel.

"No, not even a map," answered the chief. "I tell you that the family has absolutely nothing to go by. Young Fontenelle, who is making most of the searches now, only goes out to please his father and to give his friends a pleasant summer vacation."

And so the crude map which had been so mysteriously delivered to the boys was an entirely new element in the case! Who had drawn it, who had connived at its delivery, who had supplied the information buried in the legends of more than three hundred years!

Clay puzzled over the matter while the chief chatted with the other boys, but could reach no conclusion. Again he was tempted to reveal to an outsider the existence of the map, and again he forced himself to silence when the words were almost on his lips.