‘But they may search along the bank,’ demurred Lucius, laying the rifles in the bottom of the boat.
‘Nary a doubt er that,’ replied Ephraim, stooping to unloose the knot of the painter from the sapling round which it was tied. ‘But et first they’ll be in sech a confusion thet I ’low they won’t be able ter think er everything et once. And the fust idee’ll nat’ally be thet we hev gone down stream and then headed fer the opposite side.’
He untied the rope, and jumping down the bank, slung it aboard and scrambled in after it. Instantly the boat swung round, obedient to the current, and with her nose to the north, drifted rapidly down stream.
‘Out oars, Luce!’ cried Ephraim, fumbling in the bottom of the boat. ‘Head her round. By time!’
He stopped suddenly and straightened up. At the same instant Lucius grasped the facts, and they stared at each other with white, scared faces.
There were no oars in the boat!
CHAPTER XI.
LUCIUS BRINGS THE BOAT ASHORE.
For a moment Ephraim was, as he would himself have expressed it, ‘sot back,’ but he was not one to remain so long, and seizing his rifle, he grasped it by the barrel, and using the butt as a paddle, endeavoured to guide the course of the boat.