“Ye git a feel fer it after awhile. There’s a current to follow, but it’s mighty faint.”
“We must get back as fast as we can,” Penny urged, glancing nervously over her shoulder toward Black Island. In terse sentences she told of her meeting with Tony and all they had seen in the clearing.
“So the Hawkins’ are runnin’ a still!” commented the widow. “Humph! Jest as I figured, only I didn’t dast say so without proof.”
“The important thing is they’re hiding Danny Deevers! Where they’re keeping him will be for the police to discover as soon as they arrest Ezekiel and his sons.”
“I’ll git ye back fast,” the widow promised grimly. “Soon’s we git out o’ these beds and away from the island, I kin switch on the motor.”
Safely out of sight of the island, the couple found themselves in a labyrinth of floating hyacinths with no clearly defined channel. The Widow Jones tried a half dozen of them, each time being forced to return to a point she could identify as their starting place.
“Penelope, I can’t seem to find the main channel,” she confessed at last. “’Pears like we’re lost.”
“Oh, we can’t be!” Penny exclaimed. “We must get back quickly!”
“I’m a-tryin’ hard as I kin,” the widow said doggedly.
“Let me paddle for awhile,” Penny offered. “Your ankle is hurting and you’re tired. Just tell me which way to go.”