"They telt me he's awa' doon west."
"Good. You can begin to put up your stakes, using the pipe. We have another job to look after, but we'll come back when it's done."
Whitney shoved the dinghy off and they paddled up the channel. It was very dark and the rain made the obscurity worse, but Andrew searched one bank carefully as the dinghy crept along its edge. Everything was quiet, for there seemed to be no birds about, but they could hear the thud of Marshall's hammer as he drove in the pipes. Whitney, sitting aft, felt damp and cold as the water trickled down his oilskins.
"How much do you think the old fellow suspects?" he asked.
"I can't tell. He suspects something, and I didn't try to put him off the track. There were one or two reasons for thinking I'd better not. Anyway, he's to be trusted. Where's that corner buoy?"
Whitney laughed.
"If you were anybody else, I'd wager you wouldn't find it on a night like this. You don't know it was on a corner, to begin with."
"Well," Andrew said, "I'm pretty confident about hitting it in the next few minutes."
He pulled on steadily, while the rain ran down his face and trickled from the dinghy's thwarts. The bank was scarcely distinguishable a few yards away, but the water had not the opaque blackness of the sand, and Whitney scanned its surface narrowly. There was not a ripple, for the stream was slackening, and the channel was smooth as oil except for the disturbance the dinghy made. The water she displaced lapped upon the sand astern, but there was nothing on the narrow dark strip ahead.
"You haven't made a center shot this time," he said presently.