“What?” demanded the other, still eying the strange craft that bobbed and danced in the eddying currents of the river, as though tantalizing them, before once more starting on down the great stream.
“It might be our own boat!” suggested Bob.
“Oh! how could that be?” asked the other, catching his breath, and turning a troubled face toward his brother. “They are always so particular to keep it tied fast to the flatboat, you remember. Why, no one thinks of using it these days, for we have all been too busy working, to think of fishing, or trying for a few ducks.”
“You forget that Kate has paddled around in it a good deal of late!” said Bob, slowly.
Sandy became excited at once, just as his brother had expected would be the case.
“Oh! do you mean to say that something might have happened to Kate?” he asked, a tremor in his voice, for the boys were very fond of their little sister.
“I do not know; I hope not, surely,” muttered Bob, looking again out toward the drifting boat; “but, if that is our boat, you can see, Sandy, how strange that it should be afloat there, and no one in it to use the paddle.”
Sandy laid his gun quietly on the ground.
“Don’t say another word against it, Bob,” he remarked grimly, as he started to remove some of his garments.