ew words more with the ladies and the girls, he started
off to rejoin Tom and Dick, and Songbird Powell went with him.

CHAPTER III

A FRIEND IN NEED

It was ten o'clock in the morning when the discovery was made that
the houseboat was missing, and by the middle of the afternoon the
Rover boys and their chums were certain that the craft had been stolen
by Gasper Pold and Solly Jackson.

A negro boy who went by the name of Wash--evidently short for
Washington--gave them more information than anybody else. This boy,
who had been fishing near the woods below Shapette, stated that he
had seen the two men go aboard the houseboat early in the morning,
accompanied by a young man who was a stranger. The three had cast
off the ropes, poled the houseboat far out into the stream, and then
drifted out of sight down the mighty Mississippi.

"I thought dat it was werry funny da should be gwine away," said the
young darkey. "But I didn't dare to go show myself, fo' I know dat
Gasper Pold is a bad aig when he's riled up, yes, sah!"

"You didn't know the young man who went along?" asked Dick.

"No, sah--neber see him afoah, sah."

"How did he look?"

"He looked putty much lak a tramp, yes, sah! He was putty dirty too,
he was!"

"Some tramp they got to help them," was Tom's comment. "The question
is, Where will they go with the houseboat?"

"I don't think they'll dare to go to any of the big towns," said
Dick. "They'll be afraid we'll telegraph ahead to catch them. More
than likely they'll land at some out-of-the-way spot and cart our
valuables off in a wagon. Then possibly they'll cast the houseboat
adrift, or set fire to her."

"If that's the case, what's to do?" questioned Fred Garrison. "I hate
to sit still and do nothing."

"Yah! let us go after dem fellers mit pitchforks alretty!" added
Hans, vehemently. "Such robbers ought to peen electrocutioned mit a
rope, ain't dot so?"

"You mean hung, Hans," said Sam. "They certainly ought to be punished.

"Well swing them high, I do declare,
And let them dance on naught but air!
And When they've danced and hour so slick,
We'll cut them down and bury them quick,"

came softly from Songbird, who could not resist the temptation to
burst into verse.

"Great shoestrings, Songbird! To think you'd make up poetry on such
a subject," cried Fred.

"Couldn't help it--I haven't composed anything to-day," was the calm
answer.

"Maype Songpird been komposing boultry