“What did I do?” demanded Julian Shafer, with a wink. “Captain Joe asked permission to go to the rescue, and took it for granted that it would be given. Intelligent dog, Captain Joe! What’s he up to now, I wonder?”
In a moment Alex, with one hand on the railing which enclosed the deck of the motor boat, heard the rattle of anchor chains and knew that the boat was drifting downstream.
The boys called to the dog, but without avail. Save for the rush of the river, all was still. “Mighty strange!” Alex exclaimed.
Night had settled down on the Rio Grande, but the electric lights shone far out on the stream, revealing nothing!
When the motor boat reached the point from which the cries had seemed, to come the anchor was dropped again and the boys scanned both shore lines eagerly, hoping, at least, to discover the white form of the bulldog. It was not at all like Captain Joe to remain silent under such conditions.
“What do you make of it?” asked Clayton Emmett, in a tone of alarm. “Captain Joe never acted like this before.”
“There’s something gone wrong with the dog!” exclaimed Cornelius Witters, who was rather inclined to look on the gloomy side of life. “He may have been drowned.”
“Catch Captain Joe getting drowned!” cried Alex Smithwick and Julian Shafer in a breath.
In a moment, however, Captain Joe was seen to leave a great mass of rocks which stretched at least a third of the way across the stream and strike out for the motor boat.
“Did you lose him, Captain Joe?” Alex asked, lowering a floating platform as he spoke in order to give the dog access to the deck, at the same time keeping out of reach of the torrent of river water deposited on the deck by the dog.