They climbed into the boat and Jim Preston backed the Liberty away from the pier.
“How did it happen?” he asked Helen. She told him briefly and he shook his head, as though to say, “too bad, it’s getting to be a nasty night on the lake.”
The boatman opened the throttle, the motor roared its response and the Liberty leaped ahead and down the lake. They ran parallel to the shore until they were opposite the picnic ground. There Jim Preston slowed down, got the direction of the wind, and turned the nose of the Liberty toward the open and now wind-tossed lake. He snapped on the switch and a crackling, blue beam of light cut a path ahead of the boat.
“Keep the searchlight moving,” he directed the farmer, who stood up in the Liberty, his hands on the handles of the big, nickel lamp.
The boatman held the Liberty at about one third speed and they moved almost directly across the lake while Mr. Linder kept the searchlight swinging in an arc to cover the largest possible area.
A third of the way across they sighted a boat far to their right and Jim Preston swung the nose of the Liberty around sharply and opened the throttle. They sliced through the white caps at a pace that drenched them with the flying spray but they were too intent on reaching the distant boat to stop and put up the spray boards.
Helen’s keen eyes were the first to identify the boat.
“It’s the boys,” she cried. “They’re beckoning us on.”
Jim Preston checked the Liberty carefully and nosed alongside the tossing rowboat.
“No sign of Margaret,” admitted Ned Burns, “and the lake’s getting too rough for us to stay out much longer. We’ve had half a dozen waves break over us now.”