An instant later and it was all over.
The monster had disappeared and Dick, Doctor Dan and Charley Nicholson stood together on the shore.
We pass over the explanations which naturally followed.
Charley was fairly wild with joy at the meeting.
“I gave you up for dead, sure,” he said, “but Doctor Dan wouldn’t have it. It was he who insisted upon getting the canoe out and coming to look for you. What sort of a creature was it, Dick? I thought I must have gone mad when I first saw it crawling up on the shore.”
But Dick was in no mood to talk science then.
He hastily explained about Clara and they hurried toward the hut, fully expecting to find her a prisoner inside.
To their astonishment the hut proved to be unoccupied.
There could be no mistake about it, either, for the interior consisted of but a single room.
There were several bunks against the wall and on a table in the middle of the room was a whisky bottle and three glasses, but there was absolutely nothing to show that Clara had ever been there.