“He wouldn’t dare to fire at us,” laughed Darrow.
But I shook my head. Carney was a desperate character, and I would have felt safer had I had a gun on board, which, unfortunately, was not the case.
At length we rounded the south shore of Rock Island, and stood up for the north end. As we did so Darrow drew attention to another craft directly ahead.
“There’s a boat I’ve seen a number of times in the past few days,” he said. “If I ain’t mistaken it’s the same I saw towing that raft behind it—the raft that I guess was the Catch Me on her side.”
I looked, and was sure I had seen the boat before. Then we ran closer to her, and just as we passed around a bend I caught sight of the boat’s side, and recognized her as the same craft the two strangers had used on their visit to the mill.
CHAPTER IX.
THE TWO STRANGERS.
The discovery I made was totally unexpected, and for the moment I did not know what to make of it. Darrow noticed my peculiar look, and asked what was up.
“That’s just what I would like to know, Tom,” I replied. “Let us run in here out of sight. I want to tell you something.”
I pointed to a cove close at hand, and the old fisherman turned and we swept behind the bushes.