Walt told Mr. Bonstone which road Sir Edward had taken, and the two followed it in the car, and occasionally leaving it to plunge into the bushes by the river bank at places Walt thought might be visited by Sir Edward.
They had a lantern with them, for by this time it was quite dark. Mr. Bonstone at last became frightfully nervous, not outside, for he was not that kind, but internally nervous.
“Walt,” he said, “think hard. I heard you talking to Sir Edward yesterday. Did he say anything to make you think he might take some new road you’d never been over?”
Walt thought a moment; then he said, “I did tell him of a new pool high up in the river, that no one but me knows about. I got a dozen trout there one early morning last spring; but he couldn’t get there alone, I told him. It’s a rough road.”
“Just the one he’d try,” said Mr. Bonstone. “Jump in, and lead me to it.”
This time, when they left the car, they took a rocky path to the little river. “There’s a tiny islet in the middle of the river,” said Walt, “with stepping stones to it, but I guess he couldn’t make it.”
“I’ll wager he’s there,” Mr. Bonstone muttered. Then he lifted up his voice, and yelled, “Hello! Hello!” till Gringo says the woods by the river rang with the sound.
Then he listened, and at once came a husky peeping like a bird with a cold in its throat.
They were close to the islet, and Mr. Bonstone, swinging the lantern for the boy behind him, skipped over the stepping stones to it. There was a solitary tree rooted among the rocks, and there, hanging to a low-growing limb, was the poor baronet. His keen angler’s instinct had caused him to mount the limb to see if it would be a good place from which to throw a line; his wooden leg had caught in the crook of the limb, and there he hung, almost head down, until his strength had been exhausted.