e worked side by
side. Greasy had every night and all Sunday for his own purposes. Once
Mr. Gubb met Greasy carrying a large bundle of canvas, and Mr. Gubb
imagined Greasy was fitting a mast and sail to the motor-boat.

On July 15 the Independent Horde of Kalmucks gave a moonlight
excursion on the Mississippi, chartering the Silver Sides for the
purpose. The Kalmucks were the leading lodge of the town, and leaders
also in social affairs. They gave frequent dramatic entertainments--in
their hall in winter, and outdoors in the big yard back of Kalmuck
Temple in the summer. In the entire history of the lodge there had
never been so much as an untoward incident, but at eleven o'clock on
the night of July 15 something frightful did occur. It spread it
across the top of the first page of the "Daily Eagle" in the one
shocking word--PIRATES!

The Silver Star had started on the return trip and had reached a point
about two miles below Towhead Island when a rifle or revolver bullet
crashed through the glass window on the western side of the
pilot-house. Uncle Jerry--as most people called Captain Brooks--turned
his head, stared out at the moonlit waters of the river, and saw
bearing down upon him from the northwest a long, low craft. Four men
stood in the forward part of the boat, and a fifth sat beside the
motor. In the bright moonlight, Captain Brooks could see that all the
men wore black masks. He also saw that all were armed, and that from
the staff at the stern of the boat floated a jet-black flag on which
was painted in white the skull and cross-bones that have always been
the insignia of pirates. Even as he looked one of the men in the
motor-boat raised his arm: Uncle Jerry saw a flash of fire, and
another pane of glass at his side jingled to the floor.

The low black craft swept rapidly across the bows of the Silver Sides;
the sputtering of its motor ceased; and the next moment the pirates
were aboard the barge, lining up the dancers at the points of their
pistols, and preparing to take away their ice-cream money.

And they did take it. They began at the bow of the barge and walked
to the stern, making one after another of the excursionists deliver
his valuables, and then slipped quietly over the stern of the barge;
the pirate craft began to spit and sputter furiously; and the next
moment it was tearing through the water like a streak of lightning.

To chase a speed-boat in an elderly river packet would have been
non