Jarius was completely dumfounded, and well he might be.
“Tan’t any use to watch longer,” growled one. “We’ve been a set of fools. The idea of a boat’s moving! Jarius is mad, and we are fools. Come, we shall be the laughing-stock of all who hear of it. I’ll bet my gun Jarius got us down here on purpose for some game. If I thought he had——” and a latent look shone in his flashing eyes.
Jarius did not reply. He had enough to think of besides. Dropping upon his knees, he looked the boat over and over, and around it. He moved it, but it lay a dead weight upon the earth.
“It’s queer,” he muttered. “I can swear to what I saw with my own eyes, but I don’t understand it.”
He had regained his feet, and was about to leave the place, when suddenly something seemed to catch his attention and hold it.
Pointing to the edge of the water a moment later, he exclaimed:
“Look there, boys! See that sand move! There’s something under it! I—I have diskivered the mystery!”
Seizing one of the boat’s paddles, Jarius quickly cleared away the sand where he had seen it move, when a large turtle was disclosed to their gaze.
Upon further search another was found buried deeper than its mate.
“Waal, waal, it’s plain as daylight now. They were under that boat and moved it! T’others were moved in the same way. But we didn’t get this one over the critters.”