Mr. Holmes was already busy swinging the light on its pivot. Behind, peering ahead in all directions, crouched Dick Prescott and his chums.
They had gone about a mile upstream when Dick suddenly called out:
"Turn the light to the right again, Mr. Holmes, please. Yes; there it is. Don't you make out a canoe over close by the shore?"
"Turn over there, Mr. Atwater," called Mr. Holmes, his hands shaking as he tried to hold the light steadily on the floating object that Dick's keen vision had picked up.
"Is—is that Jim Haynes's canoe?" asked Mr. Holmes in a choking voice, as the launch swung in close to the drifting craft.
"Yes, sir," spoke Dick huskily. "See, there's an 'H' in a circle on the bow."
Mr. Atwater ran up so close that the boys reached over and held the canoe by its rim. There could be no doubt that it was Haynes's canoe. All of the boys recognized it.
"There are no apples in the canoe," murmured Tom Reade.
"You glutton!" muttered Dan Dalzell angrily.
"No; I wasn't thinking of that," Tom retorted indignantly. "But there being no apples shows that Greg didn't get as far as getting any. If anything happened, then it happened before he had time to load the canoe with apples."