“Mark one,” Ellen called.
They were now a good hundred feet down the channel. The water between the island and the river-bank still stretched a good seventy-five feet across, but Faraday let the boat drift to within twelve feet of the island.
Ellen called, “One half fathom.”
“That’s our limit of tolerance,” Faraday said. “I’d better pull out a little.”
But as he turned the motor, there was a dull, grinding noise and the houseboat came to a dead stop.
“Nuts,” Faraday said, cutting the motor. “We’ve run aground.” He went forward, trailed by the bulky man. The thin-nosed man looked at him ominously.
“Was that on purpose?” he asked his partner.
“I don’t think so,” the bulky man said. “The boat only draws three feet, and we were in four feet of water. He was trying to move the boat farther out when we grounded.”
Taking the leaded line from Ellen, Faraday cast it out in several directions.
“No problem,” he announced cheerily. “We’re just on a narrow sandbar. It’ll save us throwing out the anchor, and we’ll easily be able to push it off tomorrow.”
“You had better be able to,” the tall man said coldly. “If you fail, we will proceed by other means and leave your wife here.”
His tone suggested that Ellen would be left behind dead. Faraday began to wonder if his idea had been so brilliant after all.
The bulky man said, “Well, let’s have dinner and sleep on it.”
To prevent any attempt at escape during the night, their captors hogtied Faraday and Ellen to their bunks.
They did such an excellent job that both quickly abandoned any idea of struggling loose.
In the darkness Ellen whispered, “I know you grounded us on purpose, but what did it accomplish? We won’t have any trouble getting afloat.”
“We may if we can delay things until the sun is well up,” Faraday said. “Take as much time as you can preparing breakfast.”
“All right,” she agreed. “But what do you have in mind?”
“What kind of fish do you find in the Mississippi in an isolated spot such as this where there is no current?” he asked.
After a moment of silence, she said, “Mostly gar, I suppose. Why?”
“And what happens when the sun hits the water?”
“The ugly things rise to sun themselves.”
“Uh-huh. These characters know nothing about the Mississippi. I’ll bet they never even heard of an alligator gar. Here’s what I have in mind.”
He explained his plan in detail.
In the morning their captors untied them at dawn. They took their time washing and dressing, and afterward Ellen took so long cooking breakfast that the two men began to get impatient. By the time they had all eaten and they got out on deck, the sun was well up.
The still, muddy water of the channel between the island and the shore was dotted with the long, narrow snouts of alligator gar, some of the heads as long as two feet.
“What are those things?” their two kidnapers asked simultaneously.
At the sound of the voices, the nearby heads popped out of sight beneath the surface. The gars farther away placidly continued to enjoy the sun, however.
With their sharp-toothed jaws they were ferocious looking monsters. Nothing but their heads showed in the muddy water, and since their heads constituted a full third of their total length, it was easy for anyone who had never seen a gar to imagine an enormous body extending beneath the surface behind the head.
Actually they seldom grew to an overall length of more than six feet, head and all, and possessed narrow, eel-like bodies no bigger around than a man’s wrist. They were totally inedible, but completely harmless to man.
“They’re alligators,” Faraday said. “This creates a problem. Somebody has to get into the water to get us off this sandbar. Any volunteers?”
The kidnapers were staring at the numerous-beads still on the surface some distance away. It was obvious that neither questioned Faraday’s identification of them as alligators, which wasn’t surprising, since the alligator gar gets its name from the close resemblance of its head to that of an alligator.
“The place is alive with them,” the bulky man said with a shudder. “What are we going to do?”
The tall man looked at Faraday. “What was your planned procedure to get us off this bar?”
“I planned to get out alongside the boat, between the boat and the island, and pry us free with that four-by-four,” Faraday said, pointing to where the twelve-foot beam lay on deck. “But I’ve changed my mind.”
The tall man gave Ellen a contemplative look.
“She isn’t strong enough to handle the beam,” Faraday said quickly. “Besides, she can’t swim.”
“How likely are those things to attack a person?” the tall man asked.
Faraday shrugged. “Depends on how hungry they are. I doubt that you’d have a chance swimming the channel to the mainland, but right alongside the boat you might get the boat pried free before one of the brutes grabbed your leg. Want to risk it?”
The tall man looked at his partner.
“Absolutely not,” the bulky man said definitely. “You are as expendable as I am.”
The tall man mused for a moment, then came to a decision. “I guess you are elected, Mr. Faraday.”
“We cannot risk him,” his partner objected. “Suppose they gobble him up?”
“It’s a risk we have to take,” the tall man said. “The alternative is to stay here surrounded by these monsters until we either starve to death or are rescued by someone. Do you have any better suggestions?”
The bulky man looked at Ellen, then at the twelve-foot four-by-four and dismissed her as a possibility. “I suppose we’ll have to risk it,” he said reluctantly.
The tall man turned to Faraday. In a cold voice he said, “We will give you fifteen minutes to get us afloat. If we are not off the bar by then, we will toss your wife to these monsters.”
Faraday glanced at Ellen. She was pale, but he knew she wasn’t frightened by the thought of the gars, for she was as familiar with them as he was.
He said with an air of resignation, “All right. I’ll have to change to swim trunks: Will you both stand by the rail with your guns to drive off any alligators who try to attack me?”
“We want you alive,” the tall man assured him. “We will cover you.”
The bulky man accompanied him to the bunk room while he changed into trunks. When they came back out on deck, Faraday lifted one end of the four-by-four and heaved it onto the rail. He pushed it over to let it slide into the currentless water, where it floated next to the boat. There was about twelve feet of water between the boat and the island.
Faraday took a deep breath, said, “Keep your guns ready,” and lowered himself over the side.
His feet sank a foot into silt and the water came to just above his waist. The two men on deck stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their eyes peering at the opaque water and their guns leveled at it.
The heavy beam was easy to handle in the water. Directing one end of it against the side of the boat, Faraday pushed on the other end. The prying end slid along the curve of the boat’s bottom until it was lodged in the mud beneath it. Faraday heaved upward on the other end and felt the boat shift outward slightly. He pushed the prying end of the beam back beneath it and heaved again.
This time the boat floated free.
Letting the sunken end of the beam rise to the surface, Faraday pushed it toward the rail. The bulky man bent down, lifted the end onto the rail and pulled the beam aboard.
“Now pull me aboard before one of those things gets me,” Faraday said, wading toward the boat.
Then he screamed, “My leg!” And began to thrash in the water.