Norris got a long stick and began poking in the bottom of of the creek.
"Oh, not that way," I told him. "You have to say 'Open Sesame.'"
"Now look here, open up!" pressed Norris, dropping his pole.
"All right," I returned. And I produced the cylinder of bamboo.
"Well I'll—!" began Norris, hefting the thing. "Say, there's sure something heavy in that thing. Where'd you—?" And again his eyes turned quizzically toward the water.
"You know what I told you this morning," broke in Ray, taking the section of bamboo in his turn of scrutiny.
"Yes," assented Norris, "you said Wayne would have it all figured out—what became of Duran—by the time we came back. And that's one reason why I was ready to come back as soon as I found those two little colors."
And Norris showed me two little flakes of gold he'd washed out of the black sand in the creek-bed.
"But open up now, Wayne," he continued. "Tell us."
"Well you see," I began, "you, Norris, would have it that Duran had gone through the woods by the lianas; and you, Ray, insisted on it that he went through the air. Now none of us had thought of his going through the water—"