Well, while we were sitting around trying to figure out how long it would be before the water would go down and then come up enough to carry us off, Doc Carson said, “Listen!” and we heard the chug of a motor boat quite a long way off. It was getting dark good and fast now, and there was a pretty wide stretch of flats between us and the channel. Pretty soon we could hear voices—all thin, sort of, as if they came from a long way off. That’s the way it is on the water.
“She’s coming down Dutch Creek,” one of the fellows said. After a while another fellow said he thought it was Jake Holden. Then another one said it wasn’t.
“Sure it is,” Connie Bennett said, “listen.” Then as plain as day I could hear the words “crab running,” and then in a minute something about “bad news.” Pretty soon, through the steady chugging I could hear a voice say very plain, “I’m glad it doesn’t have to be me to tell her.”
We couldn’t make them out because it was getting too dark, but it was Jake Holden, the fisherman, all right. Pretty soon the engine began chugging double, sort of, and I knew they were going around the corner into Bridgeboro River, because there’s a steep shore there, and it made an echo.
I was a chump not to realize what they were talking about, but they had chugged around into Bridgeboro River and were heading upstream before it popped into my thick head. And even then it was on account of something else they said, as the chugging grew fainter all the time. It seemed as if I heard it while I was dreaming, as you might say. I knew they were pretty far upstream by now, but the voice was awful clear, like voices always sound across the water, especially in the night.
“He was a nice little fellow,” that’s what it said, “but he had a right to keep out of that place.”
Then, all of a sudden, I knew. They were talking about me. They must have been up that creek fishing and found that note of mine. And they were going to tell my people as soon as they got home.
“Holler to them, fellows!” I said; “quick—all together.”
I guess the fellows must have thought I was crazy, but they hollered for all they were worth. But it was no use, for nobody answered. I guess the wind must have been blowing our way or something—anyway, they didn’t pay any attention. Then pretty soon I couldn’t hear the chugging any more at all.
Oh, jiminies, but I felt bad. Maybe you think that as long as I escaped and would get home all right I ought to be satisfied. But that’s because you don’t know anything about my mother. When my brother died I saw how she acted and the doctor said she had to stay in bed two or three days on account of her heart being not just right. Maybe he thought it would stop, I guess. And, gee, I didn’t want her to hear any bad news, even if it wasn’t true. ’Cause I knew just how she’d act—I could just see her, sort of. I guess I was kind of thinking about it and how it would be when Jake Holden went to the house, and how she’d have to wait five or six hours, maybe till morning, before she saw me, when all of a sudden I heard Will Dawson of my patrol say, “What’s the matter, Blakey?”—he always calls me Blakey.