"Can't do nothin' more to-night," announced the constable, who didn't like the job any too well, it was evident. "And dorgs wouldn't do us no good."
"Ha! ye know what ye gotter do," threatened Blent. "I'm goin' back to town when the punt goes this evenin'. But you stay here, an' you git the hue an' cry out after him to-morrer bright and early.
"I don't want him rummagin' around this island at all. You understand? Not at all! It's up to you to git him, Lem Daggett."
Daggett grunted and followed his master back to the lodge. The girls went on before and Ruth was delighted that, for a time, at least, Jerry was to have his freedom.
"If it froze over solid in the night he could get to the mainland from the other end of the island, and then they'd never find him," she confided to Tom.
But when morning came the surface of the lake was still a mass of loose and shifting ice. Lem demanded of Mrs. Tingley the help of all the men at the camp, and they started right away after breakfast to "comb" the island in a thorough manner.
There wasn't a trace near the running stream to show in which direction the fugitive had gone. Had Jerry gone up stream he could have reached the very heart of the rough end of the island without leaving the water-trail.
A party of the boys, with Ruth, Helen, and Ann Hicks, stole out of the lodge after the main searching party, and struck off for the high point where the lone pine tree grew.
"I'd hate to think we'd draw that constable over there and help him to catch Jerry," said Bobbins.
"We won't," Tom replied. "We are just going to leave the tin box of grub for him. He probably won't come out of hiding and try to get the food until this foolish constable has given up the chase. And I put the food in the tin box so that no prowling animal would get it instead of Jerry."