When the dishes were washed Andy and Jamie took down the tent, while David shouldered a pack and preceded them to the place where they had moored the boat the previous evening. A few minutes later he came running back, and in breathless excitement startled them with the announcement:
"The boat's gone!"
"Gone where?" asked Andy incredulously.
"Gone! I'm not knowin' where!" exclaimed David.
"Has she been took?" asked Jamie, excitedly.
"Took!" said David. "The painter were untied and she were took! There's tracks about of big boots with nails in un!"
Andy and Jamie ran down with David. No trace of the boat was to be found.
In the earth above the shore were plainly to be seen the tracks of two men wearing hobnailed boots.
"They's fresh tracks," declared David.
"Made this marnin'," Andy agreed. "They's the same kind of tracks as the ones I see under Lem's window. Whoever 'twere made these tracks shot Lem and took his silver."