But this was only in passing. She did not wait to be answered.
“You tell 'em I'm going.”
“What for?” persisted Chub.
“It's six days. Maybe they throwed him where the tin cans are. You tell 'em I'm going.”
And she was gone. She must have slipped along the edge of the woods where the shadows were densest.
We listened a moment or two stupidly. Then we sprang up. It seems as if the three men were on their feet at the same instant, wakened by some common instinct or pressure of fear. It was a single sound of splashing we heard off in the darkness. Bobby was gone, then the Free Traveller, then the Prophet. We fell into hollows, over rocks and stumps, and came to the pond. The reflection of a star or two glimmered there. The water looked heavy, like melted lead, and any ripple that had been was gone, or too slight to see. The Free Traveller and Bobby went in and waded about.
“Don't you step on her,” said Bobby, hoarsely.
The bottom seemed to shelve steeply from the shore. They moved along chest-deep, feeling with their feet, and we heard them whispering. The Prophet sat down and whimpered softly. They waded a distance along the shore, and back. They came close in, whispered together, and went out again.
“Here! I got it,” said the Free Traveller. They came out, carrying something large and black, and laid it on the ground.
“It ain't Cassie!” whimpered the Prophet. “It ain't Cassie, is it?”