The Mystery on the Mississippi

hundreds and hundreds of miles from there. We’re way down here in an old river town, and that Frenchman is just waiting to murder us!” Honey cried. “Jim, why don’t you call Mr. Brandio’s office and have them wire us some more money?”
    “I don’t want to do that, except as a last resort, Honey. I think Dad would be embarrassed. We’re a fine outfit if we can’t figure some way out of this. Do you suppose we could hire someone to take us back to St. Louis and have them collect the fare there?”
    “Of course!” Honey cried triumphantly. “Jim, you find a driver for us!”
    It wasn’t as easy as it sounded, however. Not a taxi driver with whom they talked would make a run of such length. A crowd collected around the Bob-Whites. It was a sympathetic crowd, but no one was very helpful.
    When they had been turned down the third time, a young man wearing a yachting cap arrived at the desk. “Are you kids in some kind of jam?” he asked.
    “That’s the name for it,” Jim told him. “It’s this way....”
    After Jim told the story, Mart, who had been fidgeting around impatiently, asked, “Any suggestions, buddy, on how to get back to St. Louis?”
    The young man smiled. “This one. I’ve got an outboard cruiser I’m taking up to Alton Dam for a competition run to be held there tomorrow. If you want to crowd in, I’ll take you along.”
    “Wow!” Mart shouted. “More of the old Bob-White luck! Let’s go.”
    “We can pay you thirty dollars,” Jim said practically. “If that isn’t enough, we can get more when we get to St. Louis and call my father.”
    “Why should I charge you, when I’m going there anyway?” the young man said with a smile. “I’ll be glad to have some company.”
    “We couldn’t let you go to all that trouble for nothing,” Jim insisted. “Let us pay you what we have.”
    “Not a chance. Is this all of your gang?”
    “I’m Trixie Belden,” Trixie told him, holding out her hand. “We’re grateful to you for a chance to go back to St. Louis right away. We’ll find some way of showing you our thanks later. These are my brothers Brian and Mart. This is Dan Mangan, and Honey Wheeler and her brother, Jim.”
    “Call me Bob,” the young man said. He didn’t give his last name. “I’m ready to take off if you are. My car is out front. We can all get into it if you don’t mind crowding. The boat’s over on the Ohio side. It’s where all small craft dock. I’ll leave my car on the levee there till I get back.”
    Trixie glanced at her watch. “Is there enough time for us to get some lunch? We had breakfast real early. I’m hungry. We can go into the coffee shop. It won’t take long. Will you be our guest, Bob?”
    “If you can make it snappy. I want to get going.” So they hurried through hamburgers, downed malted milks, bought several small packages of cookies to eat later on, and, when the sun was directly overhead, followed Bob to his car.
    The run across Cairo took no time at all. Almost before they knew it, Bob pulled up and parked near a maze of masts and bobbing motorboats. He helped the girls into a shining varnished motorboat, the Comet.
    “Man, this is a honey,” Jim said, whistling. “You don’t think we’ll overload her, do you?”
    “No, I don’t,” Bob said brusquely. “Just get in.”
    “This sure beats going to St. Louis by car,” Mart said jubilantly. “We’ll see what it feels like to zoom along the river, instead of the pace we went at on the Catfish Princess. Not that I didn’t think that was super, too,” he added quickly. “Need any help, Bob?”
    “No, thanks.” Bob cast off, got under way down the Ohio, around the bend of the huge lake formed by the confluence of the two rivers, and headed the Comet up the Mississippi.
    “I guess we gave old Pierre Lontard the slip this time,” Trixie whispered to Honey. “He thought he had us all nicely sewed up in Cairo. That for you!” She waved airily in the direction of the delta city, fast fading into the distance behind the motorboat.
    Far from her sight, back in Cairo, a man walked hastily along the levee near the marina, climbed into his car, and hurriedly stepped on the accelerator of a black Mercedes.

Rescued ● 8

    THE SPEED of the boat brought coolness with it. Trixie and Honey, their hair ruffled by the breeze, bent with the sway of the boat and laughed happily. They passed a towboat, its engines laboring as it pushed a heavy tow of oil barges upstream