“And now this has happened!” he groaned.
And yet, what had happened? He could not tell—could only guess.
Hearing a sound to the right, he turned to listen. Catching it again, he threw his powerful flashlight on the spot.
To his astonishment the light fell full upon the face and figure of a girl.
She was a short, brown-eyed, bare-footed, Spanish girl, about sixteen years of age. Too startled to move, she stood there for an instant, blinking in the light. Then she turned and fled down the path.
Too much surprised to follow at once, Johnny sat in his place, wondering.
“There’s not such a girl within fifty miles. I am sure of that,” he told himself. “Must have come over from Quintanaroo.”
Beyond the Rio Hondo lay Quintanaroo, a land of many mysteries.
Rising, he followed down the path to the creek’s edge. There he sent the gleam of his flashlight shooting down the creek. He was just in time to see a slender canoe disappear round a clump of red mangrove.
“That’s where she came from,” he assured himself. “I wonder why?”