16. An Important Clue
To Don’s statement that Terry had disappeared the captain gave an astonished shout and hastened to join the brothers. Don and Jim explained once more how they had been all over the point without seeing anything of the missing boy. The captain was equally certain that Terry had not come back into the station, and with this new problem confronting them the three friends left the lighthouse and made a thorough search of the point.
But as Don and Jim had said there was no trace of the red-headed boy. They found the prints of the footsteps in the mud leading down to the other side of the rock, and Jim was sure that one of the prints at least was Terry’s, but that was the extent of their findings. They stood on the rock dock and looked out over the water.
“This beats all,” the captain muttered, in perplexity. “We know that he went this far and then we don’t know nothing else. I’ve got too good an opinion of that boy’s common sense to think for a minute that he jumped overboard.”
“Yes,” nodded Jim, seriously. “He wouldn’t have done that, unless there was a good reason for it. But apparently the lighthouse keeper went the same way as Terry did. I wonder what it all means? Someone in a boat must have been waiting for Terry and carried him off.”
“I don’t see how that could be,” Don said. “No one even knew that we were coming.”
“Probably not. But it does look as though the keeper was carried off to sea, and Terry must have wandered down here, too. Somebody may have hailed him and taken him off in a boat, though I don’t see why he went without telling us about it.”
“Far as that goes,” observed the captain, “a good many things may have happened. If he doesn’t show up by morning we had better go back, get your sloop and beat up the coast looking for him. He may have lighted on the trail of that gang and is following it up alone.”
They went back to the lighthouse then and waited anxiously for further developments. From time to time the boys went out and looked around the lighthouse in the hope of seeing something that would give them encouragement, but nothing happened. The telephone operator called back to say that the police and the ex-keeper were on their way out, and three-quarters of an hour later they heard them arrive in an automobile. The police captain and four men arrived with the relief keeper and the captain told the story.
“Mighty funny,” commented the police chief, while the new keeper went up to inspect the light. “If anyone took him away by force they’ll find themselves in for a lot of trouble. My men will make another hunt and I’ll look over every inch of ground.”