Poppy’s interest switched quickly from the cat killer to the creek.
“Where does it go to?” says he, rubbering up stream through the bushes that cluttered the banks.
“I never followed it,” I told him, “so I can’t tell you.”
Using a willow pole as a measuring stick, he thus learned that the water in the middle of the narrow stream was up to his neck.
“Hot dog!” he cried, jumping with excitement.
“What wonderful discovery have you made now?” says I.
“Don’t you catch on, Jerry?” he laughed. “The pirate used this creek as a sort of hidden harbor. For he was too foxy, let me tell you, to have his secret tunnel open directly on the river. So the thing for us to do is to follow the creek until we come to shallow water. And then, kid, don’t be surprised if we do find an underground tunnel, after all. Come on, Jerry!” and off he tore through the thicket like a house afire.
The creek, as we followed it, keeping as close to the banks as possible, wound here and there, as such streams do. So far as we could determine the depth in the middle was never less than two feet, which was plenty deep enough for a flat-bottomed skiff. There was no current, which showed that the stream, in spite of its name, was really nothing more than a bayou. Still, was my conclusion, it probably had some kind of a feeder up ahead, if nothing more than the occasional overflow of the canal. There was a heavy growth of slough moss here, but the channel was noticeably open, and we fancied, as we pushed and pulled our way through the dense willows, that we could see places here and there where the one-armed man had jabbed his pole into the moss.
Presently the leader gave a triumphant shout.
“Look, Jerry!” he parted the willows. “There’s the old stone house.”