"I can't stand still!" sounded Dodge's voice, with a ring of anguished suspense in it. "I've got to keep hunting."
"Go ahead, then," nodded the detective. "We would, too, if there were anything further that could be looked into. But there isn't. I'm going to stop and smoke until the launch heaves in sight."
Both policemen threw themselves on the ground, produced pipes and fell to smoking. But Bert Dodge, with the restlessness of keen distress, continued to stumble on up and down along the bank, flashing the lantern everywhere.
Presently Dodge was within sixty feet of where his High School mates crouched in hiding.
Suddenly the livery stable horse, some four or five hundred feet away, whinnied loudly, impatiently.
Natural as the sound was, young Dodge, in the tense state of his nerves, started and looked frightened.
"Wh-what was that?" he gasped.
"A horse," called Hemingway quietly. "Probably some critter passing on the road."
"I wish you'd see who's with that horse," begged young Dodge.
"It may bring us news. I'm going, anyway."
With that, swinging the lantern, Bert Dodge started to cut across through the woods with its fringe of bushes.