"There was," answered Matt, "but Ross threw it into the lake."
"Ross!" gulped McGlory. "You don't mean to say you've seen him?"
"We'll go over all that later," said Matt. "We'll make for the Catfish as fast as we can."
"That's as good a place as any, I reckon, seeing as how George isn't ready to go to Madison."
Matt opened the hood and sniffed at the engine to ascertain if there was any waste gasoline dripping from the tanks. He decided that the tanks were all closed.
The engine was started and Matt brought the boat's nose around into the wind. The trailing skiff was allowed to fall behind to the end of its mooring chain.
There was thunder, off in the west, and an occasional sharp flash of lightning. The flashes served to guide Matt over the course he had recently covered, while a prisoner in the hands of Ross and Kinky.
As he held the Sprite steadily to her course, more and more the wonder grew upon him as to the timely arrival of McGlory and George. Although Matt, when bound and cast adrift, had left a fiery trail over the lake, yet he was positive that the grewsome beacon alone had not been responsible for the providential appearance of his two friends.
But everything would soon be made clear, and Matt hurried the moment of explanation by driving the launch at her best speed.
The wind, of course, delayed the boat appreciably, but her sharp bows cut the water like a knife, and the white spray went swirling upward on both sides of the craft, high into the night.