All grouped about the speaker and peered in the direction he indicated.
“Ye’re right,” whispered Mike, swallowing the lump in his throat; “can it be Sunbeam?”
The surface of the lake was as placid as a millpond. Barely a hundred feet from shore a motionless object was seen floating, but it was so low that for a time it could not be identified.
“I’m thinking,” added Mike, “that she would not float for a day or two, but bide ye here till I swim out and make sartin.”
He began hastily disrobing, but before he was ready for the plunge Hoke exclaimed:
“It’s the branch of a tree.”
Now that the assertion was made, all saw that it was true. The identity of a limb with its foliage was so evident that they wondered how even a momentary mistake had occurred. The advance was resumed, and in the course of the following hour the boys reached the bungalow, where Jack Crandall was seated on the piazza with his crutch leaning beside him. It need not be said that he was shocked beyond expression by the news.
“How I wish I were able to join in the search,” he lamented, “but I can only sit here and wait and pray for you.”
“Do you think it likely she has been drowned?” Hoke asked.
“No; and yet it is possible. She may have slipped while walking on the edge and a child like her is so helpless that it would be all over in a minute or so. Keep up your hunt until she is found and don’t forget to scan every part of the lake you can see.”