“Look yonder, Jack—somethin’ movin’ among them bushes!” Perk was saying in his ear, for since the engine no longer kept up its roar and the propeller had ceased functioning, it was possible for them to hear ordinary sounds. “Mebbe now it might be that four-footed ole grizzly b’ar an’ I ort to get my rattler o’ a machine gun in hand.”
“Don’t bother about that, Perk,” Jack told him, “see, it’s a man, and chances are we’re going to meet the queer old hermit of the mountains right now.”
Even as Jack was thus quieting the fears of his chum, the object of their observation walked into full sight and was hastening to reach the border of the clear-water lake close by where the only sign of a beach occurred.
He was not a startling figure at all and seemed garbed in ordinary clothes that had evidently been selected for long service when far away from tailors and housewives. His face was bearded and his hair white but he strode along with a swinging step that told of bodily vigor and good health.
Reaching the border of the water he seemed to be giving them the “once over,” as Perk called it in his suggestive way.
“There, see, he’s beckoning for us to come closer,” said Jack with something approaching relief in his manner. “I see what looks like a clumsy boat made from the trunk of a tree drawn far up on the shore. Reckon he uses the old tub when he feels like doing a little fishing. We’ll taxi in as close as the depth of the water allows and then if necessary we can wade the balance of the way, carrying Suzanne between us.”
As he turned to start his motor he had one look at the white face of the speechless girl and as long as he lived Jack would never forget the tense agony he saw stamped there. It hardly seemed as though Suzanne was breathing as she stared at the figure of the strange old man on the shore in whose hands as she well knew, lay the power of life and death insofar as her happiness was concerned. One word from him would tell the whole tragic story.
Then the motor began to hum and with a dextrous hand Jack sent the amphibian scurrying toward the beach. Perk meanwhile snatched up a pole he always kept handy for such a purpose and thrusting it into the water, sounded the depth as they went along.
When presently Perk called out just what he had been waiting to announce so grandly “by the mark, twain,” Jack shut off the engine and the plump of the anchor immediately followed, Perk having that useful hook ready at his hand.
“You are searching for him, I take it for granted?” said the hermit, at the same time pointing to the wreck of the plane not many yards away with its disconsolate looking tail in the air and its nose apparently buried in the mud a few feet under the surface.