Deacon Chatford groaned. “This is a sad business, Squire Peternot!”
“He shouldn’t have tried to escape an officer of the law!” was Peternot’s stern reply.
“There’s no boy here!” Percy Lanman now announced, just as Len and Harry were going in.
“’T ain’t possible!” exclaimed Sellick.
“I’m sure of it!” said Percy. “Wait a minute, and I’ll tell you where he went.”
Down he plunged again; fifteen seconds passed—thirty seconds—a minute; still he did not reappear. Suddenly Harry Pray, as he was swimming about, heard a hollow splashing sound, and shouted, “He’s in the culvert! Percy’s in the culvert!”
“That’s where the boy has gone!” exclaimed Squire Peternot.
“I thought of that!” said Sellick. “But there’s no current, the mill ain’t going, and he fell at least a dozen feet from the opening.”
Percy now came swimming leisurely out of the culvert; making for the bank, he there proceeded to put on his clothes.
“No,” said he, laughing, as Sellick questioned him, “the boy couldn’t have floated into the culvert. But he went in just as I did,—swimming under water. And it’s my opinion, if you want to find him, you’d better look for him on the other side of the canal.”