"Gone!"
"Why—-er—-I dreamed it!" stammered the doctor's son. "Am I awake or asleep?"
"You're awake," answered Snap, and then he continued hurriedly: "Shep, do you think you heard somebody take the boat while you were in a doze and so imagined you dreamed it?"
"I—-er—-I don't know. No, I don't think I did—-my dream was so unnatural. Come to think of it, the boat had wings and flew away. Now, that couldn't happen."
"Not unless some wizard turned the craft into an airship," answered
Whopper.
All were soon at the water's edge and looking in all directions for the missing rowboat. What had been left of the outfit had been stored in the stern and tied down with a rubber cloth, to keep off the heavy dew. They stirred up the campfire still more, and each provided himself with a firebrand as a torch.
"This is the worst luck yet," observed the doctor's son, with something like a groan. "Supposing we can't get our boat and outfit back—-"
"Oh, we've got to get 'em back!" burst out Whopper. "We'll do it if we have to scrape the lake with a fine-tooth comb."
"I wish it was morning—-we can't see much in the dark, even with the torches," said Shep.
Giant was examining the shore, for the possible discovery of strange footprints. But he could discover none that looked different from their own.