“As I remember, the deer-trail is down to the right a few hundred yards. What do you say we skim along offshore and try to find it?”
“Good! Boy, I’m glad that’s over!” Jerry was breathing heavily from his exertions. He pulled on his oar, shoved off from the dark mass of piled logs an arm’s length away, and the boat began skirting the dimly-seen shoreline.
They had made the crossing in a Stygian darkness, but now the thunder again commenced its ominous cannonade. An opportune bolt of heaven-sent fire gave them a momentary glimpse of the shore on their port side, and told them what they wanted to know. Jake made out the muddy delta where, he remembered from a previous visit, the deer-trail began. Before the gloom closed in again, he pulled about and began stroking madly toward this landing. A thought struck him like a chill hand. Had a pair of terrified eyes spotted their boat from the black shelter of the trees? Did a desperate evil-doer lurk there, armed with Ellick’s sharpest hand-ax, waiting for them to set foot on shore——? Jake shrugged. The rowboat buried its nose squashily in the mud-bank, beneath the dripping trunk of an overhanging tree.
Without a sound the boys moored the painter to a convenient branch, and cautiously removed the oars and placed them beneath the thwarts, along the bottom of the boat.
“We’ll have to bail her again before we go back—if we do go back,” whispered Jerry grimly. “Can you get ashore from where you are?”
“I think so.” Jake stood and clasped the slippery tree trunk with both arms, and swung his body forward. His heavy boots made him a clumsy climber; but in a moment he had scrambled through a fringing litter of brush and twigs to firmer ground. Jerry followed in his track, almost dropping his flashlight as he clambered through the treacherous brush; and the boys found themselves once more together in the darkness of the forest.
“Stick to the trail—it’s our only guide,” advised Jake. He led the way, recalling as best he could the twisting of the narrow track which they had once followed by daylight on an idle exploring trip earlier in the season. An infrequent lightning-flash was their only help, and it was no wonder that they more than once wandered from the dim trail.
Deep into the murky reaches of the woods, they paused for breath. So far, they had seen or heard nothing save gloom-shrouded trees; the usual storm-noises of the wilderness; and the crackling of branches that marked their advance.
“Now, which way?” asked Jerry guardedly. “I think the trail splits about here. It’s getting late—if anybody in our tents wakes up, we’re sure to be missed. No use waiting here.” His teeth were chattering from the damp of the low ground. “Do you think we’ll have to give up?”
Jake was staring intently ahead. “I thought I caught a little glow of light over there just a second ago! If this rain would only hold up for a while—— There! See it?” He seized his brother’s arm and pointed.