“You’re breaking the rule to use a boat after nine o’clock,” Hervey said.
“You’re doing well,” I laughed. “Where did you ever learn the rule? I always thought that you wouldn’t even know a foot rule unless you were introduced to it.”
“I don’t want to get you in Dutch,” he said.
I said, “I’m not thinking about rules at all. I’m thinking about you. Come ahead.”
CHAPTER XXXI
THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT
Maybe I wouldn’t have thought the same as Hervey did about it, only for his telling me that the person who answered the ’phone lisped. I hadn’t noticed anything in Administration Shack at all, I have to admit that. But if some one answered the ’phone some one must have been there. And if there were signs that some one had been there, we ought to have noticed them.
When I thought about it as we rowed out on the lake, gee whiz, I could see plain enough that that young freak we had met would be just likely to hike around to camp and walk into Administration Shack if no one was there. Anyway all the camp was at supper when we were waiting for Hervey to ’phone, I knew that much.
Probably he didn’t find anything in the map-case to help him, but that wouldn’t stop him from grappling around in the lake late at night. Mr. Ellsworth says that people who hunt for treasure are always fools. A lot of fools had hunted for that tin box before the sharpy, I know that. And a lot of fellows had talked about it all around the neighborhood. Look at Harry Donnelle; he was starting to hunt for it.
Anyway, one thing, I knew that the only way Hervey could square himself was for him to get hold of the fellow who answered his call. You needn’t think I was going out on a treasure hunt, because I wasn’t. But Hervey only had that one chance, and I was going to help him.
We rowed around the edge of the lake close enough in so that we could make out the shore, because that night we couldn’t have seen where we were going if we hadn’t. Sandwich sat on the little three-cornered seat in the bow; he looked funny sitting there. The mist was so thick the handles of the oars were wet and it was all beady with little bits of drops of water all over inside the boat.