“It looks a lot like a canoe—as if they tried to hide it under some brush but the brush sprung up after they left and exposed it.”
“We’ll turn in and see,” Dick plied his paddle lustily, and the light craft swerved toward the shore.
“Aren’t we taking an awful risk?” Sandy was cautious. “Suppose they’re close to us.”
“We’ll take a chance,” Dick returned. “Better take a chance now than have them catch up with us in that canoe. It’s plain they’re not here yet.”
Nerves keyed high at thought of the peril they might be floating into, Dick and Sandy bore swiftly into the sand point, and presently the bottom of the canoe grated on the gravel. Dick leaped out into the shallow water and beached the canoe, Sandy following closely.
“It’s a canoe sure enough!” Dick exclaimed when they reached the spot where they had seen the suspicious object.
“And they tried to hide it,” Sandy came back, as they drew nearer. “See the tracks in the mud? Say! That canoe hasn’t been there a day, if that!”
“You’re right!” Dick cried, “and right here and now we’re going to see that nobody chases us in this canoe.”
“Be careful,” Sandy cautioned.
“We’ll set her adrift,” Dick went on, unheeding Sandy’s precautions. “Here, Sandy, you grab the bow and I’ll get around behind and push. Soon as we get it out in the current it’ll float down where they can’t find it. We might sink it, but we’d have to tow it into the river and we haven’t time.”