"I believe every one of them is out, in front of the dormitory."
"My uncle ought to be on the spot by this time; but if he is not, I will assume the responsibility of acting without him. If you will take a crew, and man the Marian, I will follow the route by the bridge. The keys of the boat-house are in the office. Be in a hurry about it," added Dory briskly; and he started off in the direction of the quarries.
"Suppose I see a boat working out of Beechwater, do you think I ought to try to capture it?" asked Matt, who seemed to be in doubt.
"Not at all! Follow it, and see where it goes: follow it to the end of Lake Champlain, if it leads you as far as that. Don't meddle with it, and don't let any of your fellows get shot."
Matt ran back to the dormitory. Though the bell had been ringing some time, Captain Gildrock had not yet appeared at the scene of the tumult. The captain of the Lily took the keys, and summoned the crew of the Marian. In less than five minutes they were pulling out of the boat-house. The boat proceeded, with all the speed the oarsmen could give it, to the outlet. Matt went through it to the river, and then proceeded to examine the north shore of Beechwater.
Dory followed the road to the quarries, and reached the bridge. He crossed it, and was then in the great road. Between him and the lake the region was covered with woods. From the road there were cart-paths leading down to the lake, mostly used by picnic parties. If the burglars had come this way, they were likely to take to the woods, if they understood that they were pursued.
Dory halted several times to listen; but it was useless to do so, he found, for the wind in the trees made noise enough to silence all other sounds. He passed the cart-path which led down to Porter's Bay, and soon came to one which led to a very deep indentation of the shore from Kingsland Bay.
At this point he halted and listened again, and had about come to the conclusion not to go any farther in this direction. But just then a bright thought was suggested to him by the circumstances of the occasion. There had been a heavy rain some time in the night, after he went to bed, as he learned from the puddles of water in the road. The ground, where he had seen it by the light of the lantern, had been washed by a heavy shower, such as sometimes comes with a southerly wind.
The road was rather sandy at the point where Dory halted, as he could tell from the feeling of it. He lighted a match, for the purpose of applying a little Indian craft to the situation. Placing the lighted brand inside of his hat, to protect it from the wind, he stooped down, and began to examine the bed of the road.
He had hardly bent his body to the task before he heard a sound, not a great distance from him, which was marvellously like a human voice. He sprang to his feet, and gazed into the gloom of the woods in the direction from which the sound had come. But all was silence except the piping of the violent wind through the branches of the trees. He strained his hearing-powers for some time, in the hope that the sound would be repeated; but he did so in vain.