“He would put him inside,” Wampus said, and I knew that as well as Wampus did. That was what any dog-thief would do--put Rover down inside the barge and close the hatch cover. We crept close to the barges. I picked up a good-sized stone and so did Wampus. Well, just as we got close up to the “U.S. 420” we heard Rover. We heard just one bark and then we saw a man lifting the hatch cover. The man slid down inside the barge and eased the cover back into place over his head, and then we heard no more barking. The cover was thick and heavy and I guess he wanted to shut in Rover’s barks while he was tying him fast. “Come on!” I said, and the next minute I was on the barge and Wampus after me. Then I did not know what to do. We couldn’t yank up that cover and go down and take Rover away from the man, because he might kill us or something. But Wampus knew what to do. “Here!” he said, and he tossed me a handful of his rusty nails. “Hurry up! Get busy! Nail this cover down!” So we did. We used the two rocks as hammers and drove in the nails, and then we jumped for shore and ran, because we were frightened. We ran up the path and we did not stop until we were almost at our cottage. “Gee!” I said then. “We did it! We’ve got him! But what are we going to do about it?” “Do?” said Wampus. “We’ll get Mr. Edwin Skreever and Orpheus Cadwallader and have Orpheus take his shotgun, and we’ll have them pry off that cover and get your dog. That’s what we’ll do.” “But Orpheus has gone to town.” “Well, we’ll do it in the morning.” That would have been all right, too, but just then the Bright Star came around the lower end of Buffalo Island and steered for the two barges. I went cold, I tell you! The only thing I could think of doing was to get Mr. Edwin Skreever, so we ran to our cottage and called and shouted, but he was not there. We guessed he had gone down to town as he had threatened to do, maybe, so we ran down the path to the barges. The men were already throwing off the cables. They were pretty cross, too, because they don’t like to work at night, and they wouldn’t listen to us. They told us to get away from there and they chased us. We had to stand and see the Bright Star tow the barges out into the river and away. We watched them until they were just dim red and green lights far down the river. Then we went back to the cottage. We were scared, I tell you! We thought maybe that man would stay nailed down inside that barge until he starved to death and some day his bones would be found and we would be arrested and, maybe, hung. And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, we saw Mr. Edwin Skreever’s motor-boat tied in front of the cottage! He hadn’t gone down to town. Then we were scared! Ten times over!