"Why not?" challenged Dave in astonishment.
"It's just like this," Tom went on. "Solving human riddles is all right in the daytime, but it's likely to spoil our rest at night. I can't help feeling that last night's Sploderite function was a mark of displeasure over our unwelcome interest in the lake mystery."
"Suppose we grant that," Dick answered, "yet how would last night's rascals expect us to connect the bang concert with Tom and Dan's canoe trip and discovery yesterday afternoon?"
"There's something in that idea," Reade admitted. "The unknowns might hardly expect us to show as much human reasoning power as all that. Yet I'm of the opinion that we'll continue to rest badly at night as long as we continue to feel any unhealthy curiosity about the lake mystery. In other words, my belief is that our interest in the affairs of perfect strangers is regarded by the unknowns as rudeness that must be rebuked."
"I don't care a hang about the lake mystery, anyway," gaped Dan, who was giving forth a series of yawns, his mouth only partially hidden by his right hand.
"There's just one strong point to the other side of the question," Dick argued. "There's a very fair amount of reason to believe that a man may have been drowned late yesterday afternoon, and that Tom and Dan saw him go down for the last time. That probability existing, I believe we are bound, as good citizens, to see if we can find any trace of a drowned man. If we can, then as good citizens it is clearly our further duty to report the matter to the authorities. If we can't find the remains of the drowned man, then I am under the impression that, at the least, Tom and Dan must report to some county officer just what they did see, and the county can then take up the question in any way it pleases. First of all, however, we ought to look for the body of a drowned man."
This view prevailing, Tom and Dan launched the canoe, Dick entering as passenger, while the other two handled the paddles.
Some brisk work took the canoe over, as nearly as Tom could judge, to the spot where the haunting face had been seen so briefly on the afternoon before.
Under the bright morning sun the waters were clear here, though the bottom could not be seen.
"Paddle half a mile up the lake, then down," Dick ordered.