“Guess I’d better be careful,” he thought, as he got to within a few yards of the boat. “It’s just possible that there might be someone aboard her.” So for a time he let the canoe drift, as he strained his ears to listen. But no sound, save the soft lapping of the water against the side of the steamer came to him, and dipping his paddle noiselessly in the water, he soon grasped the side of the boat. Again he waited and listened. “I guess it’s all right,” he thought, as he stepped softly into the stern of the steamer and lifting the light canoe from the water placed it bottom up across the back of the boat. This accomplished, he crept softly forward toward the engine room, stopping every few feet to listen. The door of the engine room was closed, and as he reached it he again paused and placed his ear against it. Was it fancy or could he hear someone inside the room breathing? “I don’t know whether I’m hearing things or not,” he thought as he stepped back a bit, “but it sounds as though there’s somebody in there asleep.” After thinking the matter over for a few minutes, he drew the flashlight from his pocket and stepping forward, placed his hand on the door knob. Carefully, without making the slightest sound, he pushed open the door a few inches and again listened. No longer was there any doubt as to the room being occupied. The deep breathing of a man was plainly audible. He pushed the door open still farther and quickly threw the light of the flash within the room. There on the floor in front of the furnace, with his back against the coal bin, was a man fast asleep. Bob recognized him at once as an employee of Big Ben Donahue. A few months before, as recorded in a previous volume, Bob had prevented him from selling or giving liquor to the men of his father’s crew. It was the same man beyond the shadow of a doubt, and Bob grinned as he quietly closed the door, as the remembrance of his former encounter with the man flashed through his mind. He had closed the door and crept back to the stern of the boat in order to have time to consider what was best to be done. There was not much doubt in his mind as to the way things lay. That it was a move on the part of Big Ben to delay them in getting a raft of logs started down the river he did not doubt. Knowing that the wind was blowing down the lake, he would figure that it would not be necessary to start the engine. The wind would carry the boat directly past his camp, where the man would be taken off and the steamer allowed to drift wherever the wind blew it after that. The man had frayed the end of the rope, thus making it appear that it had chafed in two. The one weak point in his scheme was that his man had fallen asleep on the job. “So far so good,” Bob mused. “And now what’s the next move?” he asked himself.