THE ROWBOAT IS FOUND
Lanky Wallace involuntarily gasped as he realized what Frank had
sought—and here was a clue at the very start. He wildly waved his
arms for the other boys to come.
“He’s found something!” cried Frank, as he led the boys across the
lawn of Mrs. Parsons like hounds in full chase.
Mrs. Parsons, her eyes having never left the boys from the time they
passed her on the lawn, now watched this strange thing—four of them
running at full speed toward a point on the river to which one of
them had gone a few minutes before.
“Henry,” she said to the hired man, “go down there at once and
see what those boys are doing. There is something here that needs
watching.”
Henry started away as he was told, but his pace was not calculated
to get him there too soon, for Henry did not know what he was
expected to do when he found what the boys should be doing, and Henry
remembered, as burly as he was, that there were five of these live
young fellows.
“Look, Frank!” Lanky cried as quickly as the other boys came to the
river bank, Frank well in the lead. “This must be the spot where the
rowboat was tied the other night.”
“I rather think it is. Let’s study it all very carefully,” Frank
looked downstream to where the _Rocket_ was riding the current of
the Harrapin. “First, are we the right distance above the _Rocket_,
because, if you remember, we had time to throw our searchlight before
we heard the scream.”
Lanky called Frank’s attention to the fact that they were not abreast
the rowboat when they first saw it, nor even when they were searching
for it through the heavy darkness with the electric spotlight.
“All right, let’s agree on that point to start with. Now, Lanky,
you know as much as I do about the happenings on that night. If we
agree that this lunch-box, this empty tobacco bag, and the piece of
rope are indications that the rowboat was here, what other reason is
there? I want to see if you are getting to the same conclusion that I
have reached.”
Lanky had it in his mind, however, for he, too, had been thinking of
the same thing Frank had when Frank first spied the opening through
the trees and the shrubbery to the river’s bank.
“Remember the match that was lighted in the rowboat that night, and
how it stood out above everything?”
“What—a signal?” cried Ralph West, while Paul and Buster stood with
mouths open, listening.
“Precisely,” replied Frank Allen. “I believe there was a signal that
night from this boat to some one on that road. Why was this boat tied
at the only actually open space along this part of the river?”
“That seems to answer our question about the automobile,” Lanky
slowly reasoned things out.
“That’s it! The automobile was in the road back of the house,
instead of standing by the garage, and it received a signal from
this rowboat! Now here comes our next question: When and why did the
fellow in the rowboat signal to the fellow in the automobile?”
Ralph, Buster and Paul, not having been there, could only picture the
scene in imagination, but Frank and Lanky were revisualizing what
they had seen that pitch-dark night on the river.
“Gee, this is getting exciting!” cried Buster.
“I’ll say it is,” added Ralph.
“Regular detective story,” put in Paul.
“Well, we—ll—” Lanky was thinking hard over another point, and he was
drawling to gain plenty of time to think before replying—“Frank,”
he looked suddenly at his good friend, his forehead wrinkling in a
frown, “if my memory serves me rightly, we heard the scream of Mrs.
Parsons about a minute or two after we saw the flare.”
Frank agreed that the time might be right.
“But,” he added, “do you recall we thought we heard a sound from
shore as if some one were answering?”
“Sure! I had not forgotten that! You stopped the motor and kidded
yourself that we were both allowing the darkness and the mysterious
sounds of the river to get on our nerves.”
Frank smiled as he recalled plainly what remarks he had made. At the
time it happened he little thought he would be nudging his memory to
serve him in recalling all the things that had occurred, nor that he
would have strong personal reasons for retracing all the detailed
steps of that night.
“We haven’t answered the question yet why and when the signal was
given.”
“What is this—an examination?” Ralph broke in. “I wish I could help!”
“Absolutely, this is an examination,” said Lanky Wallace. “This is
the greatest little examination you ever saw. Frank is thinking
certain things and he is using me to trace all the steps of his
reasoning in order to assure himself that he is right. Eh, old boy?”
“Right you are—and if you come to the same conclusions I have, we’re
going to get on the track of somebody.”
“I have it!” cried Lanky, touching Frank on the arm. “See the house
from here?” and he turned to point to the house. There stood the
hired man, Henry, just at the edge of the lawn! “Hey! What’re you
standing there listening to?”
“The madam said for you to clear out of here.”
“You clear out yourself!” called Frank, starting toward the fellow.
“We’re doing no harm to any one.”
Henry did not wait any longer. He said, “All right,” and started back
for the lawn. The boys watched him leave.
“Now, what were you saying, Lanky?”
“I was saying that you can see the house from here. The room that was
ransacked is right there on the corner in front. Suppose there came a
signal from there—it could be seen from here.”
“But why would a signal come from there?”
“Well, suppose they had finished their work, suppose they were not in
need of the automobile; if they signaled from up at the window, then
a signal from here, like the lighted match, would let them know their
signal had been seen and it would also act as a signal to the fellow
in the automobile.”
“Exactly!” cried Frank. “That’s the way I have it figured out. Now,
the next question is: Did they ransack the dining room between the
time Mrs. Parsons screamed—or the first scream we heard—and the time
we got to the rear door?”
“They surely did, Frank,” agreed Wallace. “I believe they could have
done it.”
“All right!” The other three boys listened in admiration to this
exciting disclosure of the details of the robbery. “But that means we
have how many in the gang?”
“Four, of course!” came in quick reply from Lanky.
“Well, then, if that’s agreed, let’s go to the _Rocket_ and we’ll do
some more hunting.”
Frank led the way back on to the lawn of the Parsons place, skirted
the trees and shrubs downstream, finally starting through at the
point where they had left their motor-boat.
Arriving there, all climbed aboard, not a word having been spoken the
while, not a word spoken now. The three boys, Paul, Buster and Ralph,
were consumed with curiosity, as the saying goes, wondering what the
next move was to be. They had not long to wait.
“We’ll go hunting for that rowboat now, Lanky,” said Frank, as the
_Rocket_ was shoved off from shore. “It is somewhere along the river.
We’ll just spend the rest of the day finding it.”
“I suppose the first place to start the hunt will be at the point
where we almost struck it?” asked Lanky.
“Absolutely! Let’s try to locate that spot, and then follow, for you
will remember it was going across stream, headed for the opposite
side of the river just above the island we circled trying to find it.”
Paul and Ralph was sitting at the bow of the _Rocket_ whispering to
each other, their remarks concerning their hopes that they would
locate the little craft.
Frank eased the _Rocket_ well out to the middle of the Harrapin, the
sun bearing down heavily on them now, for it was getting toward noon.
“How about something to eat? Let’s have the eats!” Buster Billings
demanded when they were well started down the stream, the _Rocket_
riding the water smoothly.
“I’m agreeable; but what do you say to waiting until we get to that
island and we’ll eat in the shade?” suggested Lanky.
It appeared to Lanky and Frank, as the _Rocket_ glided along down
the river, that the distance from the Parsons place to the island
where they had encountered the rowboat that night was shorter now
than before. One remarked it to the other, as if reading each other’s
minds.
“This is the place, Lanky, that we met the rowboat, and there’s the
direction it took. Now, I’m going around the island, following the
same path we did before, and see what the result is.”
Suiting the action to the word, Frank Allen held the _Rocket_ over
toward the island, swung around it at the lower end, and came up on
the farther side, until he was abreast the upriver side of it.
“Now, don’t you think this is about where we were?”
Wallace agreed that, as nearly as could be told in the daylight, this
was the spot where they had started their hunt.
“And right over there is where I claim that rowboat went under the
trees and stayed while we sought it,” Lanky turned and pointed to the
upper part of the island, where old willows dropped and spread their
branches down close to the water, entirely hiding the shoreline.
“All right. Since you think so, I move we eat our lunch under those
trees. Let’s get where you think they were, and see what the outcome
is.”
Frank put the _Rocket_ hard over, and gradually brought it under
the trees, though it was a close shave to make it fit under the
low-hanging branches.
“Why, fellows,” cried Paul Bird, “even in the daytime this is a good
hiding place. Look, you can’t see out, and it is a sure thing no one
could see in! Just think what it must be after dark, especially on
such a pitch-dark night as you say that one was!”
Frank was won over to Lanky’s idea, after studying the situation very
carefully.
The boys fell to on the food with a will such as only hungry, manly,
athletic fellows, can show. They attacked the sandwiches front and
rear.
And, be it said in all truth right here, neither Frank nor Lanky,
serious as they were in the matter gave any heed to further quest for
clues or information of any sort until the food was devoured and the
containers had been buried deep in the soil of the shore.
But, having partaken heartily of everything that had been brought
along, the boys walked around this part of the island, curiously
looking here and there, not for anything in particular, but as
observant boys will do when in a strange place.
“Now, fellows, since I am willing to concede the point to Lanky about
this being the hiding place that night, let’s see if we can figure
where the thing went. I believe it had something to do with that
robbery, and I wish to run it down.”
The _Rocket_ slowly, very carefully, nosed out of the willow-nook and
turned straight for upstream.
“You see, it was headed this way when we met it, and the chances are
there is a spot on this side where it found a landing—its goal, I
might say.”
The boys took the cue of their leader, Frank, and while he brought
the _Rocket_ farther over to the opposite side of the river, they
strained their eyes to watch for any trace of it.
An hour passed slowly by, with the _Rocket_ making its way steadily
up the Harrapin, the boys watching the shore. But no success was
theirs.
“How far shall we go, do you say?” Frank asked Lanky. “Do you suppose
it could be any farther up the river than we have come?”
“I don’t believe so,” slowly replied Wallace. “You see, it was a
rowboat, which, if my line of reasoning is any good, means there was
not a great distance to go. If the distance had been greater they
surely would have used a motor boat.”
Frank agreed with this, for it seemed a logical conclusion to reach,
excepting for the one item of noise, which Frank suggested, but which
Lanky set aside.
They decided to turn the _Rocket_ downstream, hold it back as well as
possible, even to the extent of drifting once in a while, the better
to give a chance of studying the brush along the shore of the river.
Another fifteen minutes passed, and it was noticeable they were
moving with the current a little faster than they had come up against
it.
It was Frank who, happening to glance up from the wheel at the right
moment, saw something which attracted his attention at the shore.
“Look! Do you see anything?” he cried.
“It’s a rowboat!” exclaimed Lanky. “And I believe it’s the same one!
Let’s get to it.”
Frank started the engine, swung the _Rocket_ out toward midstream,
and turned its nose back toward the spot where he had seen the boat
among the weeds, pulled well up from the river.