The search through the village for a clue proved, unfortunately, as fruitless as Tom had feared. Not a soul had seen Harvey or any one of his crew about the camp during the evening, nor, for that matter, anybody else. The disappearance remained as mysterious as though the wind had borne the tent away out to sea.
“Say the word,” said Captain Sam, when he heard of it, “and I’ll go over to Mayville and get warrants for the whole crew. We’ll have them up and examine every one of them. We can’t have things of that sort going on around this village.”
“I don’t want to do it,” said Tom. “At least, not yet awhile. I don’t like to suspect Harvey or any of his crew of actually stealing the tent. It may be they have taken it just to annoy us for a night or two, and we shall get it back again. I’d rather take it as a practical joke for a few days, at any rate, than to have any boy arrested. I can’t believe they would steal it for good, intending to keep it. Let’s wait and see.”
“You’ll never see your tent, then, I’m thinking,” said Captain Sam, “for I don’t believe Harvey has the least idea of bringing it back. And the longer we wait the harder it will be catching him. However, do as you think best. I’ll go down to-morrow and look their camp over, anyway, on my own hook. I have the right to do that. I’m a constable, and I’ll look their camp over on general principles.”
“You’ll not find anything, I fear,” said Tom.
“Fellows,” said George Warren, as they all sat around the open fire that evening, “we haven’t been on a cruise for a long time. What do you say to starting out in the Spray to-morrow for a trip around the island? It will take one, two, or three days, according to the wind, and Henry Burns says he can go. We’ll take along a fly-tent and some blankets, and part of us can sleep on shore, so we won’t be crowded.”
“Great!” cried Bob. “It comes in a good time for us, when we’re without a home—oh, I didn’t mean that,” he added, hastily, as Mrs. Warren looked reproachfully at him. “This is a better home than our camp was, to be sure. I mean, while our affairs are so upset, while we don’t know whether we shall be camping to-morrow or living here. It may help to straighten matters out, and, if by chance Harvey and his crew feel like putting the tent back, this will give them the opportunity.”
“Then we’ll get the lines ready,” said George. “There’s lots of small cod at the foot of the island,—and we might take a run across to the islands below, where there’s lots of bigger ones. We’ll plan to be gone two days or a week, just as it happens, and put in plenty of flour and biscuit and some canned stuff, in case we can’t get fish.”
“How happens it that Henry Burns can get off so easily?” asked Tom.
“Oh, they’ve let up on him a good deal since the capture of Craigie,” answered George. “Now that the papers have said so much about him and the rest of us, and the people at the hotel have made so much of him, Mrs. Carlin has come to the conclusion that he isn’t so much of a helpless child as she thought he was. She lets him do pretty much as he likes now, and so Colonel Witham don’t bother him, either. He will be over by and by, and we’ll make sure he can go.”