“How did the message get to New York?”
“I had to make inquiries to find that out,” replied Mr. Ringold. “It seems that the bottle was washed ashore and picked up by a colored man. He took it to his employer, who read the messages inside. They were signed by Mr. Levinberg, who also put in a five-dollar bill, to insure the sending of the telegram. With the note he wrote for transmission to me was one asking the finder of the bottle to take the message to the nearest telegraph office.”
“But where was the bottle picked up? Where may we expect to find our friends?” asked Blake.
“Somewhere below here, I think,” said Mr. Ringold. “The message was sent from a telegraph office about a hundred miles above here. Our friends probably drifted on the flood near there. They are still in the—beyond——” and he motioned to the flooded section lying to the South.
“Then let’s start!” cried Joe. “Every minute counts.”
With the provisions aboard, a new supply of gasoline, and with the films Blake was taking when he went overboard safely put away in water proof cases, the rescuers once more took up their voyage.
The remainder of the day they kept on down the flooded river. Several times they came within a short distance of big pieces of debris, and collisions were narrowly averted.
The afternoon wore away and dusk settled down. It began to rain again, and it was rather a discouraged party that looked out from the cabin of the Clytie.
“Worse and more of it,” murmured Blake, who was at the steering wheel. “Will it ever stop?”
“Now, now! None of that C. C. stuff!” spoke Joe with a laugh. “Things will come out all right yet. It’s something to have had news of our friends, when we didn’t expect any.”