Percy Simmons, being needed no longer at the engines, had joined his companions on deck. He had been an interested listener. Now he spoke.
“They fooled us, eh?”
“Just what I’ve been saying,” rejoined Ralph. “But, see here, let’s get into the boat and go hunting.”
“Go hunting? Say, what’s the matter with you? What are we going hunting for?”
“We’re going a-gunning to find the heart of this mystery,” was Ralph’s rejoinder. “Come on, boys.”
He gave a brief order to Malvin to stay by the River Swallow with Hansen and await their return. Then, with Harry and Percy as companions, he rowed off into the night.
“Keep that search-light playing,” he ordered, referring to the small but powerful lamp on the bow of the tender. The motor was not used, as the tender was light and rowed quite easily. As he rowed, Ralph kept looking around over his shoulder. After some time, during which he had rowed in ever widening circles, with the River Swallow as a focal point, he gave a sharp cry of triumph.
“Ah-ha! There’s what I expected.”
Bobbing up and down on the waves, not many feet away, the search-light showed a strange object. It was apparently a round tub with a pole set upright in it. And such it proved to be on closer inspection, which also disclosed the fact that a lantern, extinguished, was swinging on top of the pole.
“And here’s the clever trick that fooled us into thinking we were overhauling that motor boat,” said Ralph, as he inspected it. “They simply towed this tub with the lantern on the pole for some distance till we thought it was their stern light. Then, when the chase grew too hot, they set it loose with an anchor on it and scudded off, while we ran down the light, foolishly thinking that we were colliding with the other craft. Simple, isn’t it?”