The light was, indeed, swaying with the motion of the tree, but a moment later it swayed much more violently. Barney had taken it from its nail, and was swinging it to and fro in a long arc, in the usual manner of hailing a passing steamboat.
“It ain’t the beacon at all—or else some one is using it for a signal-light!” exclaimed the pilot.
He threw the lever, and the search-light blazed out. A turn of a little wheel overhead directed the beams, and out of the darkness leaped the picture of a caved bank, a treetop waving in the water, and the figure of some one in the treetop swaying the light.
“It’s the beacon all right,” said the pilot, “or it’s where the beacon was.”
He reached for a rope, and sounded loudly three long blasts of the whistle, two short and another long. On the lower deck all was activity at once.
“What’s the landing, Mr. Hinckley?” came a deep voice from the darkness below. The pilot leaned out of the window and answered:
“Head of Big Timber Bend, captain. Something wrong with the beacon—some one in the water.”
He signaled the engine-room and the wheels stopped, and again the Rupert Lee swung round.
Hinckley took a quick survey of the bank up and down the bend, then turned his light on the beacon tree. The figure of Barney stood out in bold detail.
“Hello!” said the pilot. “It’s the kid that tends the light. Lower the stage on deck there, and brace the inner end of it. Send some one out to pick the boy out of that tree. We will have to do it quick. Don’t miss him, now.”