"Not if I lived," said I. "Saturday to Monday is plenty long enough—Hello—!"
The pier and the empty stretch of water between the island and the mainland were in sight, but there was no Hobo.
"Hello what?" said Tombs. "Why, where's the ferry?"
"I don't see her," I said, and, I hope, anxiously; "you don't suppose—"
"Isn't the Hobo there?" shrieked Billoo. He turned his head on his fat neck, and at first he looked very angry, and then scared.
We walked down to the pier, and then out on the float to get as big a water view as possible, but there wasn't so much as a row-boat in sight.
"What can have happened?" said Sally.
"I'm worried to death," I said. "Suppose she was blown from her moorings, the captain could have run her into New Rochelle, and come back yesterday afternoon when the wind went down. Something must have happened."
"Oh, Sam," cried Sally, "you don't think she may have been run down by one of the Sound steamers and sunk?"
"I dare not think of it," I said. "I dare not think of the poor chaps on board."