Things were quickly bustling inside the bungalow.
Ida, as she hurried about, pallid-faced, allowed a tear or two to glisten in her fine eyes. Had Dixon been there to see, he would have boiled with rage at Tom Halstead.
“My dear,” asked Mrs. Tremaine, nervously, “if Captain Halstead ran into danger in the night, and was spirited away, how can you feel at all sure that as much won’t happen to Jeff after he starts? Hadn’t you better send some one with him?”
“Yes,” decided Tremaine, after a moment’s thought. “Dixon must go, for it wouldn’t be fair to send Joe Dawson. He will naturally want to be right here to have the first word of his chum.”
“What do you think can have happened to Tom Halstead?” inquired Ida.
“From the launch being gone,” answered Tremaine, “it is almost a certainty that a gang of Everglades skulkers have carried him off. They’d know only one place to retreat to—the heart of the Everglades.”
“Are you going to follow there?” asked Mrs. Tremaine.
“The instant we get outside help,” replied Mr. Tremaine, crisply. “I’ll leave Dixon, Ham and three or four of the natives on guard here. I’ll head all the rest on a rush expedition into the Everglades, and Joe and Jeff shall go with me.”
“Is there a really good chance of finding Halstead, if he has been taken into the Everglades?” asked Ida, anxiously, turning to Jeff Randolph.