The echoes of his voice were taken up by another crash, and the remaining walls of the boathouse flattened themselves with a great hissing as the burning timbers dropped into the well, and off the pier into the lake.
"If he was in there," added the cowboy huskily, pointing to the wrecked building, "then there's——"
"He wasn't in there," cut in Lorry. "He couldn't have been. Do you suppose the Sprite started herself?"
While speaking, Lorry was "turning over" the engine. The motor took up its cycle, and Lorry steered into the lake after the Sprite.
The Sprite was darting this way and that at terrific speed, following a course so erratic that it would be easily inferred there was no guiding hand on the steering wheel.
Away the boat would rush, directly into the gloom that hovered over the lake; then, before she could vanish, she would describe a hair-raising turn and jump to starboard or port.
"But where's Matt if he is in the boat?" demanded McGlory.
"On the bottom, perhaps," replied Lorry. "He started her, and that's all he was able to do. We've got to lay the Sprite aboard, somehow."
"That's easier said than done," said McGlory. "She's jumping around like a pea on a hot griddle, and is just as likely to slam into us and cut us down as to do anything else. Sufferin' sidewinders, look at that!"
The Sprite had made a complete turn and was now headed shoreward and streaking straight towards the boys.