CHAPTER XVIII
THE SEARCH
Ruth and Agnes went around the wooded point, called "Willowbend," andlooked up the river. As we already know, the drifting boat, with Tessand Dot and Tom Jonah in it, had gone out of sight on the other sideof Wild Goose Island.
"It never came this way, Ruth!" groaned the frightened Agnes. "They'vedrifted out to sea, just as I said."
"Nothing of the kind," Ruth declared, bound to keep up her sister'scourage, and knowing well that her conscience was punishing hercruelly. "The tide is coming in. They were bound to float up theriver. But maybe the boat's gone ashore somewhere."
"Or it's sunk," said the lugubrious Agnes.
"Now you stop that, Aggie Kenway!" cried Ruth, stamping her foot. "Iwon't have it. With Tom Jonah those children would not easily get intotrouble."
"They could fall out of the boat," urged Agnes, wiping her eyes.
"They'd not be foolish enough to rock the boat. It's all right, I tellyou. I _did_ expect to see the boat from this spot; but it's floatedinto some cove somewhere. The children are safe enough----"
"You don't know!" blubbered Agnes.
"Keep still! Yes, I _do_ know--I know as well as I want to. But we'llhave to ask for help to find them."
"What kind of help?" asked Agnes.
"We'll get Mr. Stryver's motorboat," said the oldest Corner Housegirl, with decision.
As they went back around the bend they heard a chorus of shouts fromthe camp. Agnes was startled, being in a nervous state, anyway.
"What is that, Ruth? The Gypsies?" she demanded.
"If it is, then the Gypsies have adopted the Milton high school yell.Don't you recognize it?" returned Ruth. "The boys have arrived."
"Neale O'Neil!"
"I suppose Neale is with them."
"He will help us," cried the delighted Agnes, sure in the ability ofNeale O'Neil to do almost anything.
"Well--I suppose he may," admitted Ruth, slowly.
Ruth had made no mistake in identifying the school yell of their boyfriends. There was a crowd of boys at the two big tents reserved forJoe Eldred and his friends. They had just come on the auto-stage.
Already an American flag and the school pennant were being raised onthe flag-pole before the tents. The scene at Willowbend Camp had beena most quiet one ten minutes before; now it seemed to be alive inevery part, and the boys from Milton were all over it.
They were like a herd of young colts let loose in a new pasture. Theygot the flags up before the girls came back, and then began runningraces, and playing leap-frog on the sand. The midday heat made nodifference to them.
"Doesn't that water look inviting?" shouted Ben Truman to Joe and someof the bigger boys. "When do we go in swimming, Joe?"
"_You_ can go when you like, Bennie," returned Eldred.
"I'd like right now," declared the youngster.
"Clothes and all, I suppose, Ben?" drawled Neale O'Neil.
"What's clothes? I'm not afraid to go in just as I am."
"I dare you, Ben!" shouted another of the boys, knowing the spirit ofTruman.
"Done!" exclaimed Ben, and sprang away toward the in-coming tide. Hesplashed half-knee deep into the river before the others could callhim back. He probably had no intention of going any deeper; butinadvertently he stepped into one of the holes the wooden-legged manhad recently made when he dug for clams there, and over Ben pitchedupon his nose!
There was a great shout of laughter. Ben was submerged--every bit! Hecame up blowing like a porpoise.
"Come on in, fellows! the water's fine!" he gasped, not embarrassed bythe accident.
"Thank you. We'll wait till the bathing suits arrive," returned Neale."Hello! Here are the Corner House girls--two of them, at least."
He hurried forward to greet Ruth and Agnes. The other boys simmereddown a little when they observed the girls; most of them doffed theircaps politely, but only Joe and Neale knew Ruth and Agnes very well.
"Oh, Neale!" was the latter's greeting to her boy friend. "Don't tellthe other fellows, but Tess and Dot are lost."
"Great goodness, Ag! You don't mean it?" cried Neale, keenly troubledby her statement.
"It's not as bad as _that_," Ruth interposed. "They are out in ourboat with Tom Jonah."
"I knew you had him down here. He'll take care of them," said Neale,with confidence.
"Yes, I know," agreed Ruth. "But they all got in the boat unbeknown toAggie and me, and the tide's carried them up the river."
"You don't _know_!" burst out Agnes.
"Well, they couldn't have drifted out into the cove, that's sure!"returned the older Corner House girl. "I'm going to get Mr. Stryver'smotorboat. Will you take us out in it and look for the children,Neale? You can run a motorboat, can't you?"
"Sure! And I'll do anything I can to help find the children," declaredNeale O'Neil. "Now, don't you girls turn on the sprinklers----"
"Who's crying?" gulped Agnes, angrily.
"You are--pretty nearly. And your eyes are all red."
"Hay fever," sniffed Agnes, trying to joke.
"I'm going to get the boat right away. Come on, Neale," cried Ruth,and she started for the Stryver tent. "I'm worried about thosechildren," she added, over her shoulder. "There are Gypsies about."
She hurried on and Neale took Agnes by the elbow and led her out ofall possible earshot of the other boys.
"Buck up, Aggie," he said, gruffly, as a boy will. "You've been a goodlittle sport--always. Don't blubber about it."
"But it was I who forgot to tie the boat," Agnes said.
"Tell me about it," urged Neale. So Agnes gave him the particulars."Funny how the boat should have drifted out of sight so quickly," wasthe boy's comment.
"Isn't it? But it's go-o-one----"
"There, there! We'll find it and the children will be all right," heassured her.
Ruth came running with the key to the padlock that moored the _NimbleShanks_ to the mooring stake. They got out to her--just the two girlsand Neale--in a dory.
The _Nimble Shanks_ was a blue boat with a high prow and long,sweeping lines to the low stern. It was not a large boat, but wasbuilt for speed. The engine and steering-gear were amidships and werearranged so that one man could handle the craft.
Neale was naturally of a mechanical turn, as well as an athlete. Hehad built a kerosene engine during the winter, with some assistancefrom Mr. Con Murphy, the shoemaker with whom he lived in Milton.Moreover, he had driven a boat just like this one of Mr. Stryver's onthe Milton river.
While Ruth was unlocking the chain of the _Nimble Shanks_, andfastening the dory in its place, Neale whirled the fly-wheel andcaught the ignition spark; immediately the exhaust began to pop andNeale shouted:
"All free, there, Ruth?"
"Let her go, Neale!" returned Agnes, eagerly. "I can't wait, it seemsto me."
"Sit tight, then, ladies," said Neale, as Ruth scrambled aft. "Ibelieve this craft can be made to travel."
The girls obeyed as the _Nimble Shanks_ started. She shot right outinto the middle of the river, and the wave thrown up by her wedge-likebow rose higher and higher on either hand. Actually, when themotorboat had been running for five minutes, the girls in thesternsheets seemed sitting at a much lower level than the surface ofthe river.
"Goodness! if this boat stopped suddenly we'd be drowned by thatwave," gasped Ruth.
Neale headed up the river in a grand curve. They could see the shoreson either hand. The boys ashore cheered their departure, though theydid not know their errand.
They shot by the wooded bend like an express train. The girls keptwatch on either hand for the boat. They hoped to see her rocking insome cove along one shore or the other.
But it was Neale himself who first sighted the drifting craft. Themotorboat took the south channel in passing Wild Goose Island. Nealesuddenly brought the speed of the craft down to one-half.
"There's a boat ahead," he said to the girls. "It appears to be empty.Stand up and see if it's the one
."
Ruth rose and clung to Agnes' shoulder to steady herself. She saw theempty cedar boat, bobbing on the little waves beyond the far point ofWild Goose Island.
"It's her!" she said, breathlessly. "But where are the children?"
"We'll find out," said Neale, quickly. "Sit down again."
"And Tom Jonah?" urged Ruth.
"Make up your mind that wherever the children are, _he_ is, too," saidNeale, and he let the _Nimble Shanks_ out again, and Ruth tumbledpromptly into her seat.
The motorboat fairly leaped ahead. In five minutes they were near theempty boat, and Neale shut off the engine entirely. Under the momentumshe had gained she slid right up beside the tossing cedar boat.
"Oh, oh!" groaned Agnes. "Where _have_ they gone?"
"Not overboard, that's sure," said Neale, cheerfully. "They would haveoverturned the boat."
"I--don't--know," began Ruth.
"Oh, Ruth!" shrieked Agnes. "Maybe they were not in her after all."
"But that clam man said he saw them."
"He didn't see them in the boat when it was afloat," said Agnes,clinging to the safer possibility.
"I know. But where else did they go?"
"Down the beach, maybe," said Neale, slowly.
"The Gypsies have gotten them!" exclaimed Agnes, in despair.
"Stop it, Ag!" cried Ruth, shaking her sister. "You can think up themost perfectly awful things----"
"Bet they got out of the boat on the shore somewhere, and let it driftaway again," suggested Neale, rather feebly.
"It wouldn't be like Tess to do such a foolish thing," said Ruth,shaking her head.
"They didn't have anything to tie the boat up with. There's no painterin her," said the observant Neale.
"Of course there's a painter!" cried Agnes, jumping up. "A nice longone----"
"Where is it?" demanded the boy.
"Oh, Ruth! _That's_ gone!" gasped Agnes.
"Say!" said Neale, very seriously; "ropes don't come untied ofthemselves. Sure it was fastened to the boat?"
"To that ring," Ruth declared, confidently.
"And little Tess, or Dot, wouldn't think to untie it themselves--I'msure," the boy observed. "They are with somebody who has taken themout of the boat--be sure of that."
"You only--only say so to comfort us," sobbed Agnes.
"Oh, Ag! stop being a 'leaky vessel'!" cried Neale, with a boy'sexasperation at a girl's tears. "Crying won't help you any."
Ruth had been examining the cedar boat, carefully. There was a littlewater in the bottom of it. She knew it did not leak. And floating onthe water was a tiny russet leather slipper.
"That belongs to Dot's Alice-doll!" she cried, leaning over thegunwale and fishing for the slipper. "They _were_ in the boat."
"We knew that before. The clam man said so," sniffed Agnes.
"But they got out in a hurry. Otherwise Dot would have noticed thatthe doll had lost her slipper."
"That seems reasonable," admitted Neale O'Neil. "But what's become ofthem? Where did they go? Where are they now?"
He was staring all about the river, while the two boats gently rubbedtogether, bobbing and courtesying on the tide.
"Don't see anybody on the shores--and not another boat in sight," theboy added.
"Maybe they went ashore on the island?" suggested Agnes, looking back.
"There's nobody there," said her sister, looking back, too. "Not asoul."
"Guess you're right. If there were anybody besides the girls therethey'd have some kind of a boat, and we'd see it."
"That's so, Neale," Ruth said. "And surely any grown person whorescued the girls wouldn't have let the boat drift away again."
The trio of searchers gazed at each other in trouble and amazement.They could not explain this mystery in any satisfactory way.