"Fust of all, go back."
"What! give him up?"
"I didn't say that. I said to go back, an keep a good lookout along the shore."
"But we've done that already."
"Yes, I know; but then we didn't begin to yell till quite lately, whereas we'd ought to hev yelled from the time of fust startin. Now, I think ef we went back yellin all the way, we'd have a chance of turnin him up somewhar back thar whar we fust came in sight of the cliff. Very likely, if he ain't already drownded, he's a twisted himself up in some holler in the cliff back thar. He couldn't hev got this fur, certain,—unless he'd ben a runnin away."
All this seemed so certain to the boys that they had nothing to say in opposition to it. In fact, as Bruce said, they had already gone as far as Solomon could possibly have gone, and this thought had occurred to them all. Captain Corbet's proposition, therefore, seemed to them the only course to follow. So they all turned and went back again.
"What I was a goin to say," remarked Captain Corbet, after walking a few paces,—"what I was a goin to say was this. The mistake I made was in not gettin a boat."
"A boat? Why we've traced the coast from the cliff well enough—haven't we?"
"No, not well enough. We'd ought to have planned this here expedition more kerfully. It wan't enough to go along the top of the cliff this here way. You see, we've not been able to take in the lower part of the cliff underneath. We'd ought to hev got a boat. Some of us could hev gone along the cliff, jest as we hev ben doin, and the others could have pulled along the shore an kep up a sharp lookout that way. We've lost any quantity o' time that way, but that's no reason why we should lose any more; so I muve that some of us go back, right straight off, an get a boat at the ship-yard, an come back. I'll go, unless some o' youns think yourselfes smarter, which ain't onlikely."
"O, you can't run, captain," said Bart. "Bruce and I will go, and we'll run all the way."