“Ho! Sits the wind in that quarter?” laughs the detective.
“Don’t be absurd, my friend,” smiles Ashley. “Miss Hathaway interests me only as would a statue of the Venus de Milo.”
“Indeed? Still, men have lost their hearts to a statue.”
“In books and plays. If we are to arise at daybreak I would suggest the advisability of retiring.”
CHAPTER XIV.
A CHANGE OF BASE.
“I believe this is the exact spot; yes, I am sure it is. Drop your anchor, Ashley, so that the bow will point up-stream,” says Barker, as he grasps a long pole with a hook at one end, and prepares to explore the bed of Wild River.
Ashley lets go the rock that does duty as an anchor and remarks ruefully, when all but a yard of the rope is run out: “This is deep-sea fishing. There is over twelve feet of water here.”
“Thunder! And mud enough to bury a man-of-war,” grunts the detective.
After fifteen minutes of earnest but ineffectual groping in the slimy bed of the stream Barker throws the pole from him and remarks: “No use.”