Part 30 (1/2)

”Well,” returned Norris, plucking the bones from his fish, ”I'm thinking there'll be no lack of gas for it while you're awake. When you're not awake--well, you'll dream enough hot air to--”

”Just what I was going to say,” broke in Ray. ”It delights me to see you've come round to my dream idea. You're awake at last. Not that you're to blame for having golden dreams; even I, in my younger days--”

”Not on your life!” interrupted Norris, ”I--”

”Even Wayne, here, has dreams,” continued Ray. ”He follows that nightmare, Duran, and suddenly he vanishes into nothing--all dreams.”

”Not on your life!” declared Norris, taking Ray half in earnest.

”There's gold somewhere in that creek we were on today, and I'll show you before we get through with it.”

”Maybe Duran has already cleaned it out,” I suggested.

”Don't you believe it!” said the optimistic Norris. ”He hasn't got away with it at any rate, or what is he doing back here?”

We crawled under our mosquito bars early, leaving Ray on watch by the stream. I fell asleep to the music of the little cascade, whose continual plash kept from my ears the hara.s.sing song of the mosquitoes, who with voodoo thirst sought flaws in my citadel.

I was awakened at last by an insistent hand on my shoulder and Robert's voice in my ear.

”I think Duran or somebody just went by,” he said.

He had detected a sound of plas.h.i.+ng in the water, like someone wading, though he heard it imperfectly, confused as as it was with the noise of the little waterfall. He had peered hard into that inky darkness, and it seemed to him that a shape crept along the bank of the creek.

We aroused the others, who began at once to gather our traps together, while Robert and I, with utmost caution, sought the path, and with more or less difficulty followed its course toward the bay.

It was about two o'clock when we started, and when we came to the inlet, there showed in the east signs of the moon coming, topping the horizon.

That was half-past-three; so that we were an hour and a half covering those three or four miles.

I crept to the spot where we had seen Duran's canoe concealed in the tall gra.s.s.

”It's gone!” I told Robert. ”Let's hurry the others.”

A few hundred yards back Robert came upon them. And now not a minute was lost in setting our little boat in the water. The moon lay a timid light on the bay by the time we had come out of the inlet.

”There!” cried Robert, pointing to the east.

Barely a half mile away we made out an object on the water.

”He's going down the bay,” I observed, ”not across to the Twin Hills.”

”Well, let's keep him in sight,” said Norris, ”now that we've got our peepers on him at last.”

”He'll see us if we go too fast,” cautioned Robert.

A camouflage for our boat was suggested. So we hurried to the sh.o.r.e, and six pairs of hands quickly harvested an abundance of reeds and gra.s.ses.

With this we wove a screen, as for duck-stalking. And with the sh.o.r.e for a background, it would have taken a sharper eye than a human's to distinguish us. Fortunately, the moon, being but a thin, fading crescent, gave a rather imperfect light.

Now we moved at a swift pace down the sh.o.r.e, Norris and Marat at the oars. And so we gained on Duran, who was out nearer the middle of the bay, little thinking that his plans were _gaun agley_, with his enemies hanging on his tail in spite of all his devices.

Nearly every eye was on that canoe and its paddler, and barely a word spoken till we had navigated almost a mile of the bay.