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“Don’t I know it?” said Uncle Jerry testily. “No need of comin’ to tell me.”

“They got all the ice-cream money,” said Mrs. Brooks.

“Well, ‘twa’n’t ourn, was it?” snapped Uncle Jerry.

“Why, Pa, what a way to talk!” exclaimed Mrs. Brooks. “It’s like you thought it wa’n’t nothin’, to be pirated right here in the forepart of the twentieth century in the middle of the Mississippi River in broad daylight–“

“‘Tain’t daylight,” said Uncle Jerry shortly. “It’s midnight, and it’s goin’ to be long past midnight before we git ashore. A man can’t get even part of a night’s rest no more. Everybody pirootin’ round, stoppin’ boats an’ stealin’ ice-cream money! Makes me ‘tarnel mad, it do.”

“Pa,” said Mrs. Brooks.

“Well, what is it now?” asked Uncle Jerry testily.

“Philo Gubb, the detective-man, is on board,” said his wife. “I come up because I thought maybe you’d want to hire him right off to find out who was them pirates, and if–“

“Me? Hire a fool detective?” snapped Mr. Brooks. “Why’n’t you come up and ask me to throw my money into the river?”

Philo Gubb, although not a dancer, had been on the barge when it was attacked, because he was a lover of ice-cream. He too had been lined up and robbed. He had been robbed not only of forty perfectly good cents, but his pirate had seen his opal scarf-pin and had rudely taken it from Mr. Gubb’s tie. The pirate was, Mr. Gubb noticed, a short, heavy man with greasy hands. As the motor-boat dashed away, Mr. Gubb pressed to the rear of the barge and looked after it.

As the boat regained her speed, Philomela Brooks approached him.

“Oh, Mr. Gubb!” she exclaimed, “I’m so tremulous.”

“If you will kindly not interrupt me at the present moment of time,” said Mr. Gubb, “I will be much obliged. I am making an endeavor to try to do some deteckative work onto this case.”

“Oh, Mr. Gubb!” Miss Philomela cried. “And do you think you’ll do any good?”

“In the deteckative business,” said Mr. Gubb sternly, “we try to do all the good we can do, whether we can do it or not.” And he turned away and sought a more secluded spot.

The affair of the pirate craft caused a tremendous sensation in Riverbank. Before eight o’clock the next morning every one in Riverbank seemed to have heard of the affair, and when, at eight o’clock, Philo Gubb entered the vacant Himmeldinger house, which he was decorating, he started with surprise to see Greasy already there. He had not expected to see him at all. But there he was, trimming the edge of a roll of Dietz’s 7462 Bessie John, and as he turned to greet Mr. Gubb, the detective saw in Greasy’s greasy tie what seemed to be his own opal scarf-pin.

“That there,” said Mr. Gubb sternly, “is a nice scarf-pin you’ve got into your tie.”

“Ain’t it?” said Greasy proudly. “Me new lady-friend give it to me last night.”

To Greasy, Detective Gubb said nothing. He was not yet ready to act. But to himself he muttered:–

“Scarf-pin–scarf-pin. That there is a clue I had ought to look into.”

In the town excitement was high all day. There was some time wasted while the Chief of Police and the County Sheriff tried to discover which was compelled by law to fight pirates, but the Chief of Police finally put the job on the Sheriff’s hands, and the old Fourth of July cannon was loaded with powder and nails and put on the bow of the good ferry-boat Haddon P. Rogers, a posse of about three hundred men with shotguns and army muskets was crowded aboard, and the pirate-catcher got under way.

This was, of course, Monday, and Monday the Silver Sides made her usual down-river trip to Bardenton, leaving in the morning and returning late at night. It was usually two o’clock at night when she tied up at the Riverbank levee, but this time two o’clock came without the Silver Sides. There was a good reason. As the packet neared Hog Island, about two miles below the Towhead, on her return trip, Uncle Jerry heard the sputter of a gas engine and saw dart out from below Hog Island the same low black craft that had carried the pirates before. Even before the craft was within range, the revolvers began to spit at the Silver Sides.