For a long time they paddled in silence. They kept a sharp lookout on both sides and investigated everything which looked like a possible opening in the low-lying banks. They had not found anything when they turned the bend into the stretch of the river where the raft had been tied up for the night.
There was nothing there. “Must have sunk,” Murphy chuckled.
Scott did not deign to answer. He was a good deal more puzzled than Murphy because he was sure that he had seen them the night before. He directed the bateau over to the place where the raft had been tied. There was plenty of evidence there to show that the rafts had been tied there many times before, but there were certainly no sections there now. Two sections of raft, each forty feet long, are not easily hidden.
“I wonder if that steamer could have picked them up?” he asked gloomily.
“Not likely to,” Murphy grinned. “Those logs will weigh from six to eight tons apiece.”
Scott was absorbed in his own puzzled thoughts and had lost interest for the time being in his surroundings.
“Hello, there!” Murphy exclaimed excitedly as they passed the place where the rear of the raft had been tied.
Scott was instantly alert. Behind the tangle of brush and vines which hung clear down to the surface of the water he could see what looked like an opening in the swampy shore line. He immediately turned the bateau toward it and they forced their way under the heavy screen of vegetation.
They both uttered an exclamation of surprise. They were in what appeared to be the mouth of a bayou about thirty feet wide. The sides of it were swampy and a bend about a hundred feet ahead shut in the view. They paddled silently up the creek with the feeling of a couple of bloodhounds on a hot scent.
“Holy St. Christopher!” Murphy exclaimed excitedly as the bow of the bateau poked around the bend.