For an instant the timbers shivered. Then, with a crash, they gave way, and the launch hurled through and dropped to the surface of the river. There, for a moment, it spun around. But the boat was well built. It stood the shock, and the next second, swaying from side to side, it was dashing away, past the possibility of pursuit. Jack was saved, but the villain had escaped—for the time at least.
CHAPTER IX
A SWIMMING PARTY
Though Jack Danby, partly through his own courage and determination, and partly by reason of Dick Crawford's quick thinking, had escaped from the hands of the desperado who had so evidently determined to murder him, Scout-Master Durland was anything but easy in his mind regarding his friend, as he was proud to call the young Scout who had done so well whenever he had been put to the test.
He did not want to alarm Jack himself without cause, but to Dick Crawford he spoke without hesitation.
"I'm worried about Jack, Dick," he said. "These villains are quite capable of making another attack on him, and that would never do."
"I should say not, sir! He might not get off so lightly another time."
"That's just what I'm afraid of. If they strike against him once more they are more than likely to realize that to have a chance against him, they must strike quickly. If that scoundrel had had the slightest idea that the alarm had been given, or that poor Jack was conscious, I am afraid Danby would have had very little chance of his life."
"It makes me sick to think of what they might have done. That was what I was thinking of all along as I rode for the lock."