"All right," assented Reade. "I'll do all the diving myself, Danny, if you'll take command and give your orders. Where shall I dive? The bushes have already shifted position. We're floating away from the spot, too. Just where do you want me to make the first dive?"
"I don't know," Dan Dalzell confessed. "The whole affair has given me the creeps, I think."
"I know it has done that to me," smiled Tom unsteadily. "Whew! I'll dream of that face to-night—-all night long! Dan, there seems to be just about one chance in a thousand that that man will reach shore. Let's keep the craft headed to the shore, and watch for some minutes to come. At the same time, if we see a sign of the poor fellow, we'll swim to him, or paddle to him as fast as we know how."
Both boys knew, inwardly, that they would be heartily glad to get away from what seemed plainly to them to be a haunted spot. Yet neither cared to admit his dread to the other. So, talking rather busily, they remained on the spot for fully another ten minutes.
"We won't see anything come out of the water now," Tom asserted at last. "Even if we do, it will be a drowned man."
"I guess we may as well get back to camp," Danny agreed. "Yet it is going to be an awfully creepy night for all of us, with this weird mystery of the lake on our minds."
"Don't paddle yet," begged Tom. "I'll give a hail, and see if that brings any answer."
Raising his voice, Reade shouted lustily:
"Hello, there, friend? Are you safe? Want any help?"
"Anything we can do for you, friend?" bawled Dan Dalzell, in his most resonant tone.