In a short time he approached the little steamboat pier, still running like a racer, head up, and breathing through his nostrils.
“Wonder—if—I’m—ahead.”
He could not tell. When he was close to the pier, he stopped and listened.
He heard nothing but the sweep of the wind and the boom of the surf.
“Can it be they got here ahead? Can it be they are gone?”
He crept out on the pier and looked over. Was that a boat under the edge of the pier?
He let himself over, hung down, felt out with his feet, found the boat and dropped into her.
“This is the one they came ashore in,” he decided. “It’s the only one here. I am ahead of them.”
The boat had drifted under the pier when he dropped into her. He put his hands against the wet and slimy timbers and pushed her out. Then he started to climb up on the pier.
Hark! Voices close at hand! The men were coming!