And that was all, for the launch chugged off leaving Skippy strangely numb and bewildered. He watched the snakelike movements of the trim craft as she darted through the inlet but soon the darkness enfolded her from view. After a few moments they switched on their running lights but there was too much distance between them for the boy to see his father and so he turned his back to the inlet and slowly walked toward the little cabin.
Not a light had appeared the length or breadth of the whole barge colony since the police launch slipped up to the Minnie M. Baxter yet Skippy knew that every man and woman in Brown’s Basin was awake and watching all that had transpired. His father had told him that these strange, lawless people had a surprising faculty for learning of the law’s arrival in the inlet. And hating the law as they did, they kept silently out of its sight, nor did they want to be drawn into it through another’s troubles.
Notwithstanding this knowledge, Skippy had the feeling that he had only to call out and ask for help for himself and his father, and his lawless neighbors would immediately respond. Yet that is just what Toby had warned him against. Moreover, his promise to avoid dubious company was not ten minutes old.
And so he resolved to bear his troubles manfully and alone, though never in his life had he so wanted the warmth and sympathy of human companionship. He was young enough to be afraid, yet old enough to feel ashamed of it. But the events of the day and his father’s unhappy plight finally proved too much for him and with trembling under lip he sought the shelter of the cabin.
A few minutes later a terrific storm broke over the river and swept through the Basin relentlessly. Rain lashed against the tiny windows of the cabin on the Minnie M. Baxter and the wind moaned eerily in and out of the inlet.
Skippy buried his tousled head under a pillow in his bunk and tried to stifle the sobs that would not stop. His heart raced madly in his breast every time he thought of his father and his fears increased with every crash of thunder. Could it possibly be that his father wouldn’t come back?
He squirmed farther under the bedclothes. He would have shut out his thoughts if that had been possible. Presently he heard a muffled knocking at the cabin door.
CHAPTER IX
A VISITOR
Skippy sat up instantly, threw off the bedclothes and slid to the floor. Then he hurried to the little table and lighted the lamp, meanwhile glancing toward the door uneasily. The knock sounded again; this time insistently.
He rushed to the door and swung it open. A man stood before him in the pelting rain, the tallest, broadest man he had ever seen in his life. He could not have been out of his twenties and had a large, rather amiable looking face; so large, indeed, that it made his blue eyes seem small and insignificant.