CHAPTER II
A HOPELESS SEARCH
In the brief instant that Jerry stood on the slippery point of rock hehad the queer feeling that it was all a horrible dream, or at leastonly an impossible scene from a motion picture. Where a boat had been asecond before was now only a seething, tossing down-tumbling wall ofbrownish foam.
But his stunned inaction was quickly gone. Down to the very edge of theflood he raced, almost losing his balance and toppling in. At adangerous angle he leaned over and peered into the churning water-pitbelow.
Dave had come hurrying to his side, to miss his footing at the last andplunge waist-deep into the current. A precious moment was lost inrescuing him. When, both safe on the rocky ledge, they turned to scanthe depths of the fall, it was to see a dark object suddenly pop upfull fifty feet downstream. It was the boat--but no Tod.
"Did you see it!" cried Jerry excitedly. "Didn't it look like somethingblackish in the bottom of the boat?"
"She's full of water, that's all. Tod's down there under the fall. He'sdrowned, I tell you! What shall we do? What shall we do!" ExcitableDave was fast losing his head.
"Come on!" shouted Jerry, aroused by the helplessness of his companion."We've got to get to the mill and have them turn the water through therace. Then we've got to get a boat out there--quick!"
But he had not waited for Dave. Across the river just below the dam wasa house. If there was a telephone there--Jerry knew there was one atthe mill--something might yet be done in time. There was of course noway of reaching the mill itself across that raging torrent. There _was_a telephone at the house, but it seemed hours after Jerry reached itbefore he finally got a gruff "Hello" from the mill manager, Mr.Aikens. But, fortunately, Aikens was not slow to grasp the situation.In the midst of his explanations Jerry realized that there was no oneat the other end of the wire.
Out of the house he dashed and down to where in his wild race he hadseen a boat moored below the dam. The oars were still in place. Barelywaiting for the panting Dave to tumble in, he pushed off, exultinglynoting as he strained at the oars that already the volume of waterpouring over the falls had lessened. Before he reached the main channelit had dwindled to a bare trickle.
"Take the oars!" he directed the helpless Dave, at the same timestumbling to the bow of the boat and jerking off shoes, shirt andtrousers. Diving seemed a hopeless undertaking, but there was littleelse to do. Again and again he plunged under, coming up each timenearly spent but desperately determined to try again. Two boats put outfrom the mill side of the river, capable Mr. Aikens in one of them. Agrappling hook trailing from the stern of the boat told that suchaccidents as this were not unusual in treacherous Plum Run.
Then began a search that exhausted their every resource. The ill wordhad speedily gone around among the nearer houses, and in the course ofan hour a great crowd of men appeared from Watertown itself. The waterwas black with boats and alive with diving bodies. Hastily constructedgrappling hooks raked the narrow stream from side to side. A big seinewas even commandeered from a houseboat up the river and dragged backand forth across the rough river bed till the men were worn out.
But all to no avail. Every now and then a shout of discovery went up,but the booty of the grappling hooks invariably proved to be onlywatersoaked logs or mud-filled wreckage. Once they were all electrifiedat a black-haired body dislodged by a clam-rake, that came heavily tothe surface and then sank, to be the subject of ten minutes franticdragging, only to be finally revealed as the body of an unfortunate dog.
It was heart-breaking work, and the tension was not lessened with theappearance on the scene of Mr. Fulton, Tod's father. He said nothing,but his hopeless silence was more depressing than any words of griefcould have been. Jerry and Dave and Frank, feeling in some queer wayguilty of their friend's death, could not meet his eyes as he askeddully how it had happened.
The dreary day dragged to a weary close, and the sun sank behind heavyclouds black with more than one rumbling promise of storm. The boystoiled doggedly on, weak from hunger, for their lunches had gone overwith the boat, and, anyway, they would not have had the heart toswallow a bite. Lanky, good-natured Tod Fulton--drowned! It simplycouldn't be. But the fast darkening water, looking cruel now, andmenacing, where it had laughed and rippled only that morning, gave thelie to their hopes. Hopes? The last one had gone when Mr. Aikens hadsaid:
"Never heard of anybody's being brought to after more than two hoursunder water. Only thing we can hope for is to find the body. I'm goingto telephone to town and tell 'em to send out some dynamite."
It was already dusk when this decision was made, and it was after nineo'clock before an automobile brought a supply of dynamite sticks anddetonating caps. In the meanwhile a powerful electric searchlight hadbeen brought over from the interurban tracks a scant mile west of theriver line, and the millwheel had been shafted to the big dynamo andwas generating current to flash dazzling rays of light across the water.
Mayor Humphreys, from Watertown, and Mr. Aikens were chosen to set offthe dynamite, while watchers lined the shores, sharp-eyed in the hopeof catching sight of the body when it should come to the muddiedsurface of Plum Run after the dynamite had done its work.
Charge after charge was set off, and countless hundreds of fish werestunned or killed by the terrific force of the explosive, but no bodyof a hapless sixteen-year-old boy rewarded the anxious searchers. Upand down the river combed the dynamiters, and glare and crash rent thenight for a mile down the stream. It began to look as if other meanswould have to be resorted to--the saddest of all, perhaps--time.Sometime, somewhere, after days or even weeks, ten, twenty, fifty, ahundred miles down the river, a sodden, unrecognizable body would bewashed up on sand-bar or mud-bank. It was a sickening thought.
"Have all the river towns been telegraphed?" asked a bystander, of themayor. A nod of the head was his only answer.
"We may as well go home," was the final reluctant verdict. "We can comeback in the morning." Mr. Fulton alone refused to abandon the search,and Mr. Aikens kindly offered to bear him company till daybreak broughtothers to take his place. When all had gone save these two and thethree boys, Jerry approached and tried to draw Mr. Aikens aside.
"Do you suppose," he began with a kind of despairing eagerness, "thathe could have stayed in the boat?"
Aikens shook his head. "Not a chance in the world," he declared.
"But I thought----" began Jerry, to be interrupted by Mr. Aikens, whofinally contented himself with merely repeating:
"Not a chance in the world." They were silent until at last Mr. Aikens,moved by some impulse of kindliness, for he could hardly help guessinghow miserable the boy's thoughts must be, added:
"You thought what, lad?"
"The boat was full of water, of course, but when she popped up, itlooked like there was something black in the bottom----"
"You saw the boat go over, didn't you! It must have turned over andover a dozen times down there in that whirlpool, even if he had stayedin till she lit. But he couldn't have. And even if----"
"Yes" urged Jerry, but without enthusiasm.
"If he _was_ in the bottom of the boat he would have been drowned justthe same, knocked senseless as he probably was by the terrific force ofthe fall and the tons of water plunging on top of him. Mind you, Idon't think there was one chance in a million but that he was dashedout long before the boat hit bottom."
"But where's the--the body, then?" objected Jerry miserably.
"If grappling hooks and seines and dynamite couldn't answer thatquestion, don't expect me to. Look here, lad, I know you feel all cutup over it, but think of how his poor father feels----"
"I am--that's what makes me feel as if it was partly my fault."
"Now--now--don't take it like that. Man and boy I've lived on this andother rivers a good many years over forty, and a drowning I've knownfor every one of those years. The water's a treacherous dame--shesmiles at you in the sunshine, and the little waves kiss each other andplay around your boat, bu
t the shadows lurk deep and they're waiting,waiting, I tell you. The old river takes her toll. It happened to be_your_ friend, that's all. But it wasn't anybody's fault. Mr. Fultonwould be the last one in the world to think so."
Jerry looked over at Mr. Fulton, who had finally ended his mute pacingup and down, and now sat, chin in hand, staring out across the water. Asudden impulse made the boy go over and stand for awhile, silent,beside the grief-stricken man. He wanted to say something, but thewords would not come. So, after a little, he walked upstream to whereDave and Frank huddled against an overturned boat; the night wasgrowing a bit chill.
"Moon's coming up," remarked Frank as Jerry settled down beside them.No one answered.
"It's awful to sit around and not move a finger to find him," shiveredDave at last. "Seems as if there ought to be something we could do."
"Do you know what I think?" replied Jerry, almost eagerly. "I think Iwas right about that boat. I've been trying to remember what we left inthe boat that could have looked like--like what I saw when she came up.There wasn't a thing in the boat--not a thing. It was Tod I saw--I knowit was!"
"But he never could have stayed in," objected Frank.
"That's what Mr. Aikens said--and everybody else. But tell me what elseit could have been I saw. I saw _some_thing, _that_ I know."
"We ought to have gone after the boat," admitted Dave, slowly. "Wedidn't do a bit of good here, that's sure."
"But we didn't know that at the time," Frank argued. "Everybody'd haveblamed us if we'd gone on a wild goose chase down the river after anempty boat----"
"But nobody would have said a word if we'd found him in the bottom of aboat everybody else thought was empty. If the moon was only higher----"
"You don't catch me drilling off down Plum Bun at night, moon or nomoon. There's a rattlesnake or copperhead for every hundred yards!" Itwas Frank who took up Jerry's thought. "Besides, it would be differentif we hadn't waited so long. Tod--Tod's--he's dead now," voicing atlast the feeling they had never before put into words.
There was a gruffness in Jerry's voice as he answered, a gruffness thattried hard to mask the trembling of his tones. "I know it, but--but--Iwant to do something for Mr. Fulton. Won't you fellows go along withme? I guess I--I'll go."
"Down river?" asked both boys, but without eagerness.
"Till we find the boat."
"It's no use," said Frank. "Our folks'll cane us now when we get home.Going along, Dave--with me?"
"How far do you s'pose the boat's drifted by now, Jerry?" asked Daveinstead of answering Frank.
"Can't tell. She's probably stuck on a sandbar or a snag, anywhere fromfive to twenty-five miles down. Don't go along, Dave, unless you wantto."
"Better come home with me," urged Frank.
"Do you _need_ me along, Jerry?" queried Dave uncertainly.
"No--" shortly--"no _I_ don't. Mr. Fulton does--Tod does."
Jerry rose stiffly to his feet and started slowly off in the faintmoonlight, without so much as a look behind.
"So long, Jerry," called Frank. "Come on, Dave."
But Dave slowly shook his head and reluctantly followed the footstepsof his chum.
"Hold on a minute, old man; I'll stick with you."