The youth stepping from the helicopter into the electric launch was coppery of skin, black of hair. No other occupied the cockpit.
The launch turned, while Chick and Garry busied themselves with rope, binding the sullen son of Ti-O-Ga, the Indian Garry had met.
“Well,” Vance, the control chief, saluted Don. “You’ve brought down your prisoner. Wish we could say as much.”
“What happened?” Don asked.
As his engine died he listened intently.
“When this Indian ran away from the airport and came here,” Chick explained, “he must have tried to use the helicopter to get away in. But the real Demon jumped out as he got in, letting you go up after the helicopter while he got away.”
“But how could he get away?” Don remonstrated. “There’s only the narrow rim of land, beyond us, on Crab Channel, then another water inlet.”
“Mr. Vance guarded the paths,” Chick admitted, “and Garry picked me up and we beat the grass. I don’t know how he could get away—but he is gone—and with the police to help us beat this part of the swamp—all we’ve found is—just nothing!”
“But he—couldn’t get away!” expostulated Don.
“Couldn’t he?” said Garry, ruefully. “Well, then—where shall we look next?”