In a moment the attitudes of the two fugitives relaxed, and they smiled rather sheepishly. Guilty consciences are not agreeable traveling companions, but their self-confidence and contempt for their enemies reasserted themselves at once.
“This won’t do,” muttered Grantley. “We must get our confounded nerves under better control than that. There’s nobody after us here, and we know it. They’re all running around in circles back there, and we’ll have to stop shying at the mention of a policeman. Let’s have a look at the blamed boat, and then forget it when we’ve shown a little natural curiosity.”
Before they could rise, though, another of the boatmen gave an exclamation which halted the two criminals and left them tense and motionless.
“By George, they’ve done changed their course, an’ are headin’ right this way!” the man ejaculated. “Gosh! I ain’t cracked no safes, I’ll swear! How about you guys?”
The jocular query was addressed to the speaker’s fellows, but that did not give much comfort to the two skulkers in the shadow of the cabin. They decided to remain where they were until they saw which way the cat was going to jump.
Meanwhile, however, Grantley thought it best to pull the wool over the boatmen’s eyes.
“What’s that I hear about a police boat?” he asked lazily. “Tell us when it comes abreast. We’re too darned comfortable here to get up for anything short of a battleship.”
The man made some laughing answer, and Grantley and Siebold managed to keep up a semblance of careless conversation to mask their anxiety.
They had had the best of reasons for believing that effective pursuit was out of the question, but at the approach of the police their guilty fears had instinctively flamed up.
Those who had been watching the boat approach had little doubt now that its business was with the little flotilla of barges, and their mystified comments caused the fugitives’ hearts to sink like lead.