"Why, that's just what struck me," replied Clay eagerly. "I never saw him before, but I have seen some one that looks like him."
"That's about the way of it," assented Nugget. "We'll keep a sharp lookout for that purple faced man, anyhow."
"We certainly will," replied Clay. "Now then, let's be off. The fellow won't return again."
They backed out of the inlet and paddled on down the creek. Hardly a word was spoken. The mysterious stranger's warning had taken a deep hold upon both lads, and they were so deeply engrossed in puzzling over it that they failed to see the dam until it was close to them. The falling water made but little noise since the breastwork was almost submerged.
It was a weird and lonely scene that the boys gazed upon now—the broad yellow flood under a leaden sky, the gray crumbling mill looming through a pall of drizzling rain, and beyond, where the mists deepened, the foaming thread of the creek, visible for a brief stretch before it was lost among the steep, pine clad hills.
"What a desolate place!" exclaimed Clay. "I don't believe there is a human being within a mile. The boys must be farther down, and ten to one they shot the dam in the dark. It doesn't look very dangerous, but I hardly think we'll risk it, Nugget. That corner by the mill seems a likely place to carry around."
"So it does," assented Nugget. "Come ahead, we'll try it."
With cautious strokes they paddled on until a sudden glimpse of the sluiceway leading under the mill caused them to pull up short. They headed straight for shore, and as they scrambled out at the foot of the hill, and pushed through the bushes, intending to see what the chances were for a portage, they blundered into the two missing canoes and the tent.
"Here's luck!" cried Clay. "Ned and Randy must be—"
The sentence was never finished, for that, instant the bushes rustled, parted, and a big burly man with a purplish red face stepped out.