[CHAPTER XXVII]
NED AND BOB CAPTURED
It was a little lonesome for the two boys after Jerry had gone. For as long as possible they listened to the exhaust from the motor boat. When that died away, and silence, broken only by the lap of the water, and the occasional note of a bird getting ready to seek its nest for the night, settled down, that part of the lake was not the most pleasant place in the world.
“Well, we’ll have supper, go to bed, and it won’t seem so long,” said Bob. “I wish this robbery business was all cleared up. I’m afraid something may happen.”
“Oh, you’re getting nervous,” remarked Ned.
“Well, maybe I am,” admitted Bob, “but I can’t help feeling that something is going to happen.”
After a simple but substantial meal the boys brought some blankets up from the bunks and made beds on the deck, in the shelter of the awning which stretched from the forecastle to the galley amidships. They were not long in falling asleep, as they were worn out by the events of the day, as well as being rendered drowsy by the open air and wind.
It was about an hour past midnight when there echoed over the lake, in the vicinity of the island near which the schooner was hidden, the muffled throbbing of a motor boat. It was not speeding, as could be told by the intervals between the explosions. Sometimes they died away altogether, and silence ensued.
It was in one of these intervals, which betokened that the engine had stopped and that those in the boat were listening intently, that some one in the craft dropped an object that awoke the echoes.
“What’s the matter back there?” exclaimed a harsh voice.