“Their captain does not intend to surrender,” rejoined the latter fearlessly.  “Let those desert who like.”

“I am with you, Captain,” quietly said a tall young man, of German accent, who had been foremost in the fighting.

[Illustration:  “I am with you, Captain.”]

“Good, Lieutenant Kammerer, I knew you’d stick,” commented the leader.

“As to the boat, Judge Clayton,” resumed Dunwody, “what shall we do with her?”

“Burned boats tell no tales,” here called out young Yates sententiously.

“You hear,” said Dunwody.  “My men are not children.”

“It’s piracy, that’s all,” rejoined the young leader,

“Not in the least, sir,” broke in Judge Clayton.  “We’ll burn her here, tied to this bank on Missouri soil.  The river fell during the night—­some inches in all—­she’s hard aground on the shore.”

“Fall in, men!” commanded Dunwody suddenly.  “Jamieson, fix up my leg, the best you can.  It’ll have to take its chances, for we’re in a hurry.  About the paroled men, get them in the rowboats and set them loose.  Get your crippled men off the boat at once, Jamieson.  This couple of prisoners I am going to take home with me.  The rest can go.

“But there’s one thing we’ve forgotten—­where’s that girl?” He turned to the northern leader.

“She’s below, in the cabin.”

“Go get her, Clayton,” commanded Dunwody.  “We’ll have to be quick now.”

Clayton found his way down the narrow companionway and in the darkness of the unlighted lower deck fumbled for the lock of the cabin.  When he threw open the door he found the interior dimly lighted by the low window.  At first he could make out nothing, but at last got a glimpse of a figure at the farther side of the little room.  “Who’s there!” he demanded, weapon ready.

There was no answer, but slowly, wearily, with unspeakable sadness in every gesture, there rose the figure of the girl Lily, around whose fortunes had centered all these turbulent scenes.

In the confusion which followed, no one had a clear conception of all the events which concluded this tragic encounter.  Dunwody, Jamieson and Clayton cleared the men from the decks of the boat.  The wounded hobbled to a place of shelter.  The dead were laid out in a long and ghastly row at the edge of the willow grove.  Meantime, busy hands brought dried brush and piled it up against the side of the boat as she lay against the bank, the leader in this being the Honorable William Jones, who now mysteriously reappeared, after a temporary absence which had not been noted.  The faint light of a match showed in the dim dawn.  There came a puff of smoke or so, a tiny crackling.  A denser burst of smoke pierced through the light flames.  Soon the fire settled to its work, eating in even against the damp planking of the boat.  The drier railings caught, the deck floors, the sides of the cabin.  In half an hour the Helen Bell, early border transport, was a mass of flames.  In a quarter-hour more, her stacks had fallen overboard and the hulk lay consumed half to the water-line.