“We have got to find that sailor,” was Dick’s verdict, “and luck is going to have a good deal to do with it. I suppose Simmons is on the look out for him?”
“Yes,” replied Scott, “I wired him at once.”
“Do you think Gronvold and the sailor have quarrelled?” put in Yvette.
“I think not,” was Scott’s reply. “If they had there seems no reason for the man’s alarm. I think he calculated on going back to him. That was Simmons’ view, too.”
Dick, who had been carefully studying a map, looked up.
“Just look here,” he said, “you could hide an army in this place.”
The map was in contour and gave a vivid impression of the wild and desolate country, a broken mass of hills and lakes, stretching north and east from Tonstad.
“Suppose Gronvold is there,” said Dick, “he could hide anything he wanted to. I don’t think he would have travelled far from its base to blow up the hill—that was probably experimental. My idea is that he has established his laboratory somewhere in the hills about there. There is no population and little or no traffic through the district. He must send to one of the towns for supplies, and Christiansand is the most likely. I should guess that the sailor had come there for that purpose and may come again.”
“He did not leave the town by boat,” declared Scott. “Simmons made the most careful inquiries on all the boats in the harbour and no one of his description was seen.”
Three tourists a week later were lodged in a comfortable hotel in the Dronningens Gade, one of the principal streets in the busy port of Christiansand. They were Yvette, Jules, and Scott. Dick had flown the Mohawk direct to the wild district north-east of Tonstad, and with the help of a light tent had pitched a camp in a little wood a couple of miles from the southern edge of the blown-up hill. He had taken pains in the selection of a suitable place and his camp and the Mohawk were so admirably hidden that they were safe from discovery, unless some one actually walked right up to them, a contingency which in that roadless, unpopulated country was extremely unlikely. But though hidden himself he commanded a wide view.