Suddenly his ears were assailed by a distant thud—like a shot!
Tom listened. There was the deep silence of the morning over all of Nature. “Perhaps an Indian is out hunting—or a white man has just shot his breakfast,” Tom mused, and deciding that he had gone far enough he swung lazily, and then set off with brisk strokes.
Then he beached and stood up on a ledge of sandy coral reef. The three signal shots bore their triple crash through the woods, followed by Nicky’s final shot.
“That sounds more like fighting than hunting,” mused Tom. “I wonder if our land party has made contact! I guess I had better go back to the cutter and see if they have noticed any rocket signals.”
He turned and began to swim back.
He had gone further than he had intended to, however, and he felt pretty well tired out by the time he came back to the river mouth; so, deciding to rest and to hail the cutter and ask for information, he drew himself up on the root.
He saw a flurry of activity on the cutter; quite clearly he had been totally forgotten in some new excitement. The motor was running and Lieutenant Sommerlee, eyes fixed on the far reaches of the river was maneuvering, backing and turning to bring the cutter broadside to the channel. Tom turned to look back up the stream he had recently swam in, and saw, afar, the white spot that would soon become El Libertad, backing out because she could not turn in the channel.
Mentally, Tom summed up the situation quickly; if he tried to swim out to the cutter he would interfere with the lieutenant’s plans, and perhaps be in the line of fire if the white vessel continued to approach. He would surely be in line of fire from her stern if he tried to swim to the cutter.
Yet, naked and white against the dark foliage, he would be just as much of a target, and quite as noticeable, on his root.
Hastily, but warily, remembering saw-tooth grass and snakes as very real menaces to unshod feet and an unprotected body, Tom melted into a thicket of heavy creeper and leaves, and with his eyes peering through his green lattice, he saw the white boat crawl out into view.