“This makes me feel more like talking,” said Hamp Gouch, after swallowing a goodly portion of the stuff.

“Perhaps you had better give us the whole game straight from start to now,” said Pick Loring.  “Then we can make up our minds just what we can do.”

Sitting down, Dan Baxter told as much of himself and Lew Flapp as he deemed necessary, and told about the trip on the houseboat which the Rovers, Stanhopes, and the Lanings had been taking.  Then he told how Dora and Nellie had been abducted and how the voyage down the Ohio had been started in the mist and the darkness.

“You’re a putty bold pair for your years,” said Pick Loring.  “Hang me if I don’t admire you!” And he smiled in his coarse way.

“Of course you can see the possibilities in this,” went on Dan Baxter.  “Supposing we can make the Stanhopes and Lanings and Rovers pay over fifty or sixty thousand dollars for the return of the girls.  That means a nice sum for each of us.”

“Right you are,” came from Hamp Gouch.  “As you say, it beats horse stealing.”

“Have they got the money?” asked the other Kentuckian.

“They have a good deal more than that between them.  The Rovers are very rich.”

“But they are only friends?”

“More than that.  Dick Rover is very sweet on Dora Stanhope, and Tom Rover thinks the world of Nellie Laning.”

“Then of course they’ll help pay up—­especially if they hear the girls are likely to suffer.  We can write to ’em and say we’ll starve the girls to death if the money don’t come our way.”

“Exactly.  But we’ve got to find some place to hide first.  We can’t stay on the river any great length of time.  They’ll send word about the houseboat from one town to another and the authorities will be on the lookout for us.”

“I know where you can take this houseboat,” put in Hamp Gouch.  “Up Shaggam Creek.  There is a dandy hiding place there and nobody around but old Jake Shaggam, and we can easily ’buy him off, so as he won’t open his mouth.”

“How far is that creek from here?”

“About thirty-five miles.”

The matter was talked over for fully an hour, and it was at last decided that the houseboat should go up Shaggam Creek, at least for the time being.  If that place got too hot to hold them they could move further down the river during the nights to follow.

The man on the launch was called up and matters were explained to him by Pick Loring.

“Sculley is a good fellow,” said Loring to Baxter.  “He will do whatever I say and take whatever I give him,—­and keep his mouth shut.”

“That’s the kind of a follower to have,” was Baxter’s answer.

The horse thieves were hungry, and a fire was started in the galley of the houseboat.  The men cooked themselves something to eat and Baxter and Flapp did the same.  It must be confessed that Flapp did not like the newcomers and hated to have anything to do with them.  But he was too much of a coward to speak up, and so did as Baxter dictated.  Thus is one rascal held under the thumb of another.  It was only when Lew Flapp was among those who were smaller and weaker than himself that he dared to play the part of the bully.