“We did start in Spencer's wagon, but it broke down before we'd gone ten miles, the road was so bad.”
“But we didn't see it,” said Pink.
“We must have passed it on the first stretch before we found the road.”
“And then,” said Henry, “I thought we'd better stick it out on foot. You see, I didn't believe it would occur to you that we would take to the woods. And even if it should, I thought we should have plenty of time before you started after us. I misjudged it there, you see. I was thinking hardest about the other end of it—about what we should do when we got down into Indiana, with maybe your men on the lookout for us everywhere. And then a horse is a give-away—you can't hide it. And the road is so heavy with sand that it's 'most as quick to walk. I thought it all over and decided it that way. So we dragged the wagon off into the bushes, and led the horse off and shot him. But why didn't you ride?”
“We didn't get a chance until we reached Lindquist's. And then we were so close on your trail—and I knew you were on foot—that I decided the same way. If we had been rattling along in a wagon, you might have heard us quarter of a mile ahead, and all you would have had to do then would be to step into the bushes and let us go by.”
At a few minutes before noon the party alighted from the wagon at Spencer's wharf, where the Merry Anne still lay, waved a signal to the launch, and were carried out past False Middle Island to the Foote.
“I guess there isn't much doubt what we 'll do next,” said Beveridge, with a yawn, as the launch drew near to the companion-ladder, which had been let down forward of the paddle-wheel.
“I guess there ain't,” Pink replied with another yawn.
“One thing, Dick,” said Beveridge, “before we go away from here,—it isn't right to leave your schooner in there for the porcupines to chew to pieces.”
Dick, who had been studying the bottom of the boat, looked up quickly and with a peculiar expression. After Henry's confession, would he be allowed to sail her back himself? Beveridge caught the look, and for an instant his face showed the faintest trace of confusion. “You see,” he went on, “I've been thinking it over on the way back from Van Deelen's. It's rather an irregular thing to do, but I'm willing, if Captain Sullivan will let us have a few men, to turn the schooner over to Harper here. He's competent to handle her, isn't he?”