“I have it!” Dick seized an oar, stepped to the stern, asked Nann to take the seat in the middle of the boat and then he stood and pushed the punt into the narrow creek.
They had not progressed more than two boat-lengths when a whizzing, whirring noise was heard and the seaplane scudded from behind a reedy point which had obscured it, and crossed their cove before taking to the air. Then it turned its nose toward the island. All that the watchers could see of the pilot was his leather-hooded, dark-goggled head, and, as he had not turned in their direction, it was quite evident that he didn’t know of their existence.
“Gone!” Dick cried dramatically. “’Foiled again,’ as they say on the stage.”
“Wall, anyhow, we’re here, so let’s go on up the creek and see what’s in the ol’ ruin.”
Dick obeyed by again pushing the boat along with the one oar. Dories said not a word as the punt moved slowly among the reeds that stood four feet above the water and were tangled and dense.
“There’s one lucky thing for us,” Nann began, after having watched the dark water at the side of the craft. “That sea serpent you were telling about, Gib, couldn’t hide in this marsh.”
“Maybe not,” Dick agreed, “but it’s a favorite feeding ground for slimy water snakes.” Nann glanced anxiously at her friend, then, noting how pale she was, she changed the subject. “How still it is in here,” she commented.
A breeze rustled through the drying reed-tops, but there was indeed no other sound.
In and out, the narrow creek wound, making so many turns that often they could not see three feet ahead of them.
For a moment the four young people in the punt were silent, listening to the faint rustle of the dry reeds all about them in the swamp. There was no other sound save that made by the flat-bottomed boat, as Dick, standing in the stern, pushed it with one oar.