“I know why he went out so far,” remarked Porter. “He is running without lights.”
“That in itself is suspicious, isn’t it?” Orme asked.
“Why, yes, I suppose so—though people aren’t always as careful as they might be. Our own lights aren’t lighted, you see.”
“Have you any clue at all as to where she is?”
“Only from the direction the sounds came from just before the explosions stopped. She had headway enough to slide some distance after that, and I’m allowing for it—and for the currents. With the lake as it is, she would be carried in a little.”
For nearly half an hour they continued straight out toward mid-lake. Orme noticed that there was a slight swell. The lights of Evanston were now mere twinkling distant points, far away over the dark void of the waters.
Porter shut off the power. “We must be pretty near her,” he said.
They listened intently.
“Perhaps I steered too far south,” said Porter at last.
He threw on the power, and sent the boat northward in slow, wide circles. The distant steamship had made progress toward the northeast—bound, perhaps, for Muskegon, or some other port on the Michigan shore. She was a passenger steamer, apparently, for lines of portholes and deck-windows were marked by dots of light. There was no other sign of human presence to be seen on the lake, and Orme’s glance expectantly wandered to her lights now and then.