“What are you going to do?” Alex asked. “Look here!” Jule queried. “The _Rambler_’s sides and prow are braced with steel, aren’t they?”
“You know it!” Alex answered with a chuckle as he began to understand the purpose of his chum.
“Well, then,” Jule declared, “I’m going to ram her! If that steamer gets her nose in our way, I’m going to send the _Rambler_ plumb through her. I wonder how they’ll like that?”
“If you do,” Alex advised, “reverse the minute you strike. If you don’t, you are likely to get wedged into any hole you may make.”
“I tell you I’m going to send the _Rambler_ clear through her!” insisted Jule. “I’m going to bang her with all the force of the motors.”
“Go to it!” Alex exclaimed. “I’m game for any racket of that kind. Only don’t you say anything to Clay about it. He’d be afraid of breaking the motors or something.”
The _Rambler_ was now almost to the entrance. The steamer was still moving upstream. As the boys looked the prow of the whiskey boat turned almost directly into the path which the motor boat must follow in order to leave the lagoon.
Jeers of triumph arose from the cabin deck of the steamer as those on board took in the significance of the situation. They now considered it certain that the _Rambler_ would soon be at their mercy, blocked beyond the possibility of escape in the lagoon.
Jule at the helm of the motor boat, however, had a very different idea as to how the scene ought to terminate. In a second the great steamer, lumbering and loosely built, lay broadside to the oncoming _Rambler_. Clay gave a cry of warning as the boy swirled the boat so as to strike the steamer amidships, but Jule held on to his course.
Before Clay could utter another cry of warning, the steel prow of the _Rambler_ crashed into the steamer about a third back from the prow!
It seemed for a moment as if Jule’s prediction that he would go clear through the lumbering old steamer was to be fulfilled, for the steel prow cut into the thin sides of the steamer as a knife cuts into cheese. The shock was terrific.
The boys were knocked off their feet, and Jule found himself rolling on the deck with the tiller ropes still grasped in his hands!
Shouts of rage and alarm came from the sinking boat, and there was an immediate rush for the railing overlooking the motor boat. The steamer was still staggering under the impact of the blow, and those on board were reeling like drunken men.