In as few words as possible Alex explained the mystery of the three blue lights according to the aged merchant’s theory.
“Well,” Jule said, after a moment’s thought, “the three blue lights did bob up out of the river. There wasn’t anything there to keep them floating down with the current, or to sustain them on the surface. And,” he went on, “there wasn’t anything there to cause an explosion.”
“Ho!” Alex scorned. “You’ll be saying next, that you believe in the ghost story! Now, just to show you that there’s nothing to it,” he continued, “I move that we come back up the river after a time and find out where those blue lights come from, and where they go to.”
“What do you say to that, Clay?” asked Jule.
“You needn’t ask me whether I’m interested or not,” Clay replied. “I’ve been thinking about those three blue lights a whole lot. I don’t believe in ghosts, or superstitions of any kind, but I do believe that there is something significant about those lights.”
“Then it’s settled that we’ll return and investigate?” Alex asked.
The boys all replied in the affirmative and then Alex opened the package Clay had brought him and unrolled his fish lines, which looked more like cables than anything else. Case and Jule laughed until they found it necessary to hold their sides.
Clay looked on with an amused expression on his face. He knew that Alex usually had a pretty good reason for anything he did, and was expecting something novel and original. He was not disappointed.
Paying no attention whatever to the jeers of his chums, Alex bent the great hooks to the cable-like line, took a turn with each around the section of railroad iron, and moved the whole contraption to the stern.
“Now, you fellows help me to get these lines in right,” he commanded. “It wants one boy to a line so they won’t get tangled when I dump this sinker in. Hurry up now, we want this fish.”