“I wish I knew,” he mused, as he pushed his way through tangled thickets and descended and ascended rocky slopes, “I wish I knew exactly why that woman came near fainting when I mentioned the three blue lights.
“I have an impression,” he went on, “that there’s some feud coming to life. In the first place, I don’t believe the story told at the stranded coal barges last night.
“Those men never sought the river with the intentions of destroying that steamer. They wouldn’t have brought their horses along if that had been their object.
“The horses, of course, might have been used in the way of transportation to the river, but, at the same time, men out on such a mission would not care to be seen riding so openly through the country.”
It is needless to say that the boy did not believe one word of the story told him by the woman who had given him his breakfast. He was too hard-headed to believe in ghosts or supernatural demonstrations of any sort.
He knew however, that there must be some reason for the display of the lights, and knew that no little ingenuity had been shown in the placing and extinguishing of them. So studying over the problem, the boy finally came to the little cove where he had left Case and Jule.
Captain Joe fawned about him as he advanced, but when he approached the thicket where the boys had been preparing their rough beds, he saw that they were not there. He lost no time in making a close examination of the ground, both at the landing and at the entrance to the thicket.
What he saw set his heart to bounding excitedly: At both points there many indications of a desperate struggle.
Had he known the plight in which Alex found himself at that moment, Clay would have been doubly alarmed.