“That’s mighty queer. That boat is on the river. It has no motor. It can’t move away fast. We are faster than it is. So, it is not far from here right now.”
“But it isn’t in sight. It is so plagued pitchy dark that one can’t see, anyhow,” replied the other.
“But we’ve come right across their path. They can’t have gotten far.”
“No—you’re right. But they’ve gotten out of sight whether they got far away or not.”
“Suppose they turned, too, when they saw us turning, and went to the upper side of the island? Let’s take a look?”
Lanky said nothing. But he was thinking that he did not relish the plan. He knew that a bullet could come out of that darkness very easily, for the willows hung far over the water on the upper side of this island, as he well recalled, and the boat could easily have slid somewhere beneath them.
Frank navigated toward the island, the searchlight playing about, like some great sepulchral hand reaching out to grasp, in weird, ghostlike fashion, whatever it might find.
Though they searched the waters and around the island for several minutes, no trace of the rowboat was to be found. It had completely vanished in the night.
“Frank,” declared Lanky, as they moved down the river after the fruitless hunt, “that rowboat is on the upper side of the island, under those willows, snugly tucked away, and there was at least one gun pointed our way in case we ran in there.”
“Maybe you’re right. Even at that I don’t see that we need to risk our skins hunting for something that may be as peaceable as a baby.”