"I don't know."
"You don't?"
"Well, they didn't seem to believe what I said, anyway. And there's something else I don't like the looks of."
"What else?"
"Oh, nothing much. I think I was followed down to the wharf. Look over there. Can you see? Is that a man or a woman in that boat there—the one that just came around the stern of the Umatilla?"
"A man."
"No, the other. You can't see now. She got down low the moment she saw me looking at her. Give her another haul. There; that'll do." The last remark referred to the sail which the Indian had hoisted as Tom was speaking.
"Why, Jo, where did that boat go?" he continued a moment afterward, looking back among the shipping.
The skiff was gone.
A couple of hours later they were cutting across Puget Sound before a fresh wind, with the slap and drench of the rising waves against their bows. The timbered uplands were darkly visible a mile or so ahead, and Tom called out to his companion in the bow: