The next instant the current which was still rising caught her and shot her off down stream with her bow pointing in the right direction. Mr. Raynor grabbed the spokes of the steering wheel before the craft had a chance to smash into the bank and Merritt set the engine slowly going on reverse so as to check, as much as possible, the furious speed. He had grave doubts of the patched-up link holding, but he nursed it along as carefully as he could.
It was not till they had gone some distance that either of them had a chance to speak, and then naturally their first words were about those they had left behind. What anxieties beset them may be imagined. Two of their number were lost; the pair that had set out to find them would return either with or without the castaways, but in any case to find the launch gone. That it was all as unavoidable as fate made no difference to the seriousness of the situation.
The Pathfinder, handled with consummate skill by Mr. Raynor, reached the Gatun settlement that evening, and the news spread like wildfire that the boys were lost and that Mr. Mainwaring had been left, by force of circumstances, in the forest. Everyone there appreciated the gravity of the situation. The river was rising and it might be impossible to ascend it for a week, even if then.
From the vivid flashes of lightning visible in the far-off peaks it was clear that back in the wild Cordillera the storm was raging savagely. The water continued to rise. After supper Mr. Raynor, in charge during Mr. Mainwaring’s absence, wrote out a telegram to Lieut. Col. Goethals informing him of what had happened. Merritt, who was aching for something to do, volunteered to take it to the little telegraph office by the railroad track; for the head official of the canal was in Colon inspecting the work there, having left the day before in his private car.
Mr. Raynor, perhaps seeing that Merritt would feel better with some employment to take his mind off his worry, readily consented. The Boy Scout set out at once. As he went he looked back at the distant peaks several times. The lightning was playing a witches’ dance above them, and he thought with a pang of those near and dear to him who might be wandering at that very moment among them.
The operator at the Gatun station was a talkative chap and he chatted to Merritt while he waited for an open wire. He told him that he had had a busy evening and grumbled quizzically at his own good nature in trying to please other people.
“Why, only half an hour ago,” he said, “a chap, a young American, I guess, was in here and borrowed two of my batteries. Said he was experimenting. Well, I knew him by sight and I let him have ’em. What’s the result? I’ve had to charge two more and the line don’t work as good.”
Merritt only half listened to the voluble operator’s relation of his troubles. But presently he looked up languidly as the operator said brusquely:
“Why, here’s the chap coming back now. Well, if he’s after any more batteries he don’t get ’em.”
A footfall sounded on the platform outside, the door opened and in came a man at sight of whom Merritt almost fell off his chair. It was the young man that he had seen in the barn with Jared and with whom the latter had driven to the station the night of the fire in Hampton.