During the day Frank managed to remove the pelt of his prize, and it was fastened with nails against the cabin wall, in a place where the sun could seldom strike it; for skins must always be dried in the shade. And every time he looked at it, in days to come, doubtless Frank would always see the strange picture of the flooded river; the houseboat interlocked with the floating tree; the family and Jerry perched amidst the branches; and that savage beast owner for the time being of the gallant _Pot Luck_. CHAPTER XXIII—LEFT IN THE LURCH “Are you sure he’s asleep in the cabin?” Frank asked this question in a low tone, some days after the adventure with the panther. He and his three chums were loitering on deck at the time. It was about the middle of the afternoon; and complaining of feeling sleepy, old Luther had vanished within the cabin. “Yes, I just went in to get something; and he was snoring on his cot,” replied Will; “but what’s up, Frank?” “He’s got something to tell us about the old man,” remarked Jerry. “I’ve seen him watching Luther when he thought the passenger we’ve had fastened on us wouldn’t be noticing him. Out with it, old fellow.” “I’ve made up my mind that his name isn’t Luther Snow at all,” Frank remarked, in a whisper. “Then what might it be, Frank?” asked Bluff, casting a quick glance toward the door of the cabin. “What would you say to Marcus Stackpole?” queried the other, coolly. Various exclamations told of the boys’ astonishment. “How under the sun did you ever jump on to that?” demanded Jerry. So Frank had to tell them the many reasons he had for believing it to be the positive truth; and as he talked the others began to see light too. “That would account for the way he just made us take him on,” said Will. “Yes,” added Bluff, “even when we made him up a purse, he went on down the river, and laid for us again, with a yarn about the skipper of a packet jumping him because his money gave out. Well, we swallowed it all, like a lot of innocents, for a fact. Frank, honest now, I believe you’ve hit the truth, and that that little black launch that used to hover around was his boat.” “He must have let ’em know someway that his passage was secured, because I haven’t noticed it around for weeks now,” remarked Jerry, with a nod of his head. “But why under the sun do you suppose he wants to be with us on the _Pot Luck_?” demanded Will. “That’s what I can’t tell you,” Frank replied. “I only know that he acts as if he wants to stick to us all the way to New Orleans; and that Uncle Felix seemed to be afraid he’d do that very same thing. Chances are, we’ll never know what it all means until we get there, and ask your uncle to explain.” “Well, do we carry him there?” asked Bluff. “I should say not, if we know it,” was the way Jerry vented his opinion. “And as my uncle impressed it on me that, above all people, I mustn’t take Marcus Stackpole aboard, I think we ought to get rid of him right away,” Will declared.