Presently he repeated his question.
“Have you any plan, sir?”
Mr. Mainwaring sprang to his feet; his eyes had a hard glint in them.
“Yes, I have a plan,” he exclaimed, “the only plan that can save them. We must return at once, get a powerful force and ransack this forest from end to end. Perhaps if the Indians learn of this, and learn of it they will quick enough, they will give the boys up.”
Slowly, each busied with his own thoughts, they made their way back toward the river. But before they reached it, it began to grow dusk. An uneasy wind sighed in the tops of the forest trees. But for this a death-like stillness prevailed.
“We must hurry. A storm is coming on,” said Mr. Mainwaring looking upward.
Before long they could catch the glint of the river through the trees. But here a fresh surprise awaited them. There lay the canoes, just as they had left them; everything looked the same, but of the launch there was not a sign!
They could hardly believe their eyes, but the fact remained that the Pathfinder had vanished; nor was there any trace of its two occupants. It was at this moment that Rob noticed that the river seemed to be flowing more swiftly and that its level had risen.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE RUINED CITY.
It would have been worse than useless for Tubby or Fred to have attempted flight, as the stout youth had rightly conjectured. Resistance would have been equally foolhardy. This would have been so in any case, but any move against the Indians was now rendered doubly dangerous by the fact that two of the odd-looking little natives had picked up the two rifles the boys had so foolishly forgotten and were examining them in a way that showed that they had knowledge enough of the white man’s weapons to use them, should occasion offer.