CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SEARCH, AND HOW IT ENDED.

CONSTABLE SELLICK was not a man devoid of feeling, for all his merry disposition. He stood gazing anxiously at the water, shading his eyes from the sun reflected in it; then, as Jack did not come up a second time, the worthy man was filled with consternation.

“Who are the good swimmers here?” he cried. “Go in after him, some one! You can dive, Len Edwards!”

“But I can’t dive like Jack Hazard,” answered Len. “I’ve seen him in the water with the Chatford boys. There’s nothing he can’t do in the water.”

“His breath was most likely beat out of his body, striking the surface,” observed Mr. Byron Dinks. “A man may strike the water in such a way, it will be like falling flat on a rock.” And Byron picked his teeth with a stem of dry grass from the bank.

“I’ll go in if Harry Pray will,” said Len.

“Well! I’ll go if you will,” replied Harry. And in the midst of the general excitement and confusion, these two enterprising young men began to undress.

Before either was prepared for a plunge, however, a third young man, who had just arrived on the spot and learned that a boy was drowned, leaped out of his clothes as if by magic; while the word ran through the crowd, “Percy Lanman! It’s Percy Lanman! He can get him!”

“Take away that rail!” shouted a clear, ringing voice.

The rail, which somebody had brought, and which Sellick was poking ineffectually about in the deep place where he had seen Jack go down, was quickly withdrawn; and the owner of the voice, white and gleaming as a living statue, sprang from the bank; a plash and a flash, and he had disappeared in the sparkling water.

He was gone about fifteen seconds, which appeared almost as many minutes to some of those who watched with intense interest for his reappearance. At length he came up again, shook the water from his dripping head and winked it from his eyes, and looked about him while he took breath.

“If he can’t find him we can’t,” observed Len, starting to put on his clothes again.

“I’m going in, anyhow,” replied Harry, moving towards the water.

“If you do I will,” said Len.

“No discoveries?” cried Sellick, anxiously.

Percy did not reply, but thrusting his head once more beneath the surface, swam slowly about with his eyes open, gazing into the sunlit depths.

Deacon Chatford groaned. “This is a sad business, Squire Peternot!”

“He shouldn’t have tried to escape an officer of the law!” was Peternot’s stern reply.

“There’s no boy here!” Percy Lanman now announced, just as Len and Harry were going in.

“’T ain’t possible!” exclaimed Sellick.

“I’m sure of it!” said Percy. “Wait a minute, and I’ll tell you where he went.”

Down he plunged again; fifteen seconds passed—thirty seconds—a minute; still he did not reappear. Suddenly Harry Pray, as he was swimming about, heard a hollow splashing sound, and shouted, “He’s in the culvert! Percy’s in the culvert!”

“That’s where the boy has gone!” exclaimed Squire Peternot.

“I thought of that!” said Sellick. “But there’s no current, the mill ain’t going, and he fell at least a dozen feet from the opening.”

Percy now came swimming leisurely out of the culvert; making for the bank, he there proceeded to put on his clothes.

“No,” said he, laughing, as Sellick questioned him, “the boy couldn’t have floated into the culvert. But he went in just as I did,—swimming under water. And it’s my opinion, if you want to find him, you’d better look for him on the other side of the canal.”

“Fooled again, Sellick!” said the journeyman carpenter. And the cry went through the crowd, “Jack’s got away! he has gone through the culvert under the canal!”

Sellick ran to the top of the bank and looked eagerly across,—a great crowd following him. Only the level tow-path met his eye, and a horizon of far-off forest-tops beyond: not even the saw-mill was visible, to say nothing of the race into which the culvert conducted the pond water. The whole country fell away in that direction towards Lake Ontario, which lay behind the billowy line of forest-tops.

To make any discoveries on the other side of the high embankments, which carried the canal over what had once been a narrow valley opening out into the broad, low country, it would of course be necessary to cross to the tow-path. But there was no bridge nearer than the village, and Sellick did not like to get wet. So he called out to the two swimmers, now diligently looking for Jack in the pond after it had been shown that he wasn’t there, “Hello! Len and Harry! go through the culvert and see what you can see!”

“Will you, Harry?” said Len.

“No, I won’t go through the culvert, for any constable!” replied Harry.

“Nor I neither, if you won’t,” said Len; the culvert being generally regarded with superstition by village bathers. “There’s water-snakes in it!”

“If the mill should start, we couldn’t swim back against the current,” Harry answered Sellick.

“Then hurry up here, and cross the canal; come, you’ve got your clothes off!” cried Sellick.

“What do you say, Harry?” asked Len.

“I d’n’ know, I do’ wanter!” replied Harry.

“Nor I neither!” said Len.

“Come, Sellick! don’t be l’iterin’ here!” exclaimed the impatient Peternot. “Either cross over, or go round by the bridge.”

“Here comes an old wheat-boat; maybe the steersman ’ll put us across,” said Sellick. “Hello!” he shouted, “lay over here!” And he called to the driver: “Do you see any boy about the race-way, or running off anywhere, down on that side of the canal?”

“I see a man going into the saw-mill,—nobody else,” answered the driver.

“Call him! tell him to come up to the tow-path.”

“Call him yourself!” And the driver cracked his whip at the towing horses.

“I shall git aground, if I go over there,” said the steersman.

“No, you won’t! Good shore! plenty of water! you’re light!”

“What’s the row, anyhow?”

Before Sellick could answer, somebody in the crowd cried, “Prisoner got away—boy—went through the culvert under the canal—constable wants to go over and git him.”

“Give ye a quarter,” added Sellick.

Slowly the bow swung over towards the “heel-path”; then the steersman, bracing himself against the tiller, carried over the stern. The boat grated hard against the shore, and immediately, not only Sellick, but at least a dozen men and boys with him, jumped and scrambled aboard.

“Ruther more passengers ’n I bargained fer,” remarked the steersman, as the boat floated off again. “Guess I shall haf to charge ye all about ten cents apiece.”

“Charge ’em what you’re a mind to, and set me across in a hurry,” replied Sellick.

“What boy is it,” asked the steersman, “and what mischief has he been up to?”

“His name is Hazard,—Jack Hazard.”

“You don’t say! I know Jack! I used to go with a scow his step-father was captain of when he was a driver; Cap’n Berrick’s scow. But I thought Jack was doin’ well, back in the country here somewhere.”

“He was, till he got into another man’s house by mistake,” said Sellick. “He ain’t a bad boy, Jack ain’t; a good feller; smart too,—smartest boy I ever see! But slippery as an eel! He’s slipped through my fingers twice to-day. But you ain’t putting us ashore!”

“Passengers hain’t paid their fare yet,” replied the steersman, coolly keeping the boat in the middle of the canal. “Tell me about Jack.”

“Lay up and I will! Here’s my quarter.”

“Ten cents,—ten cents all round; no partiality,” said the steersman, declining the proffered coin. “About Jack—I’ve knowed him off and on for a couple o’ year an’ more, and I never believed he would steal.”

“It wasn’t exactly stealing.—Hurry up with your money!—Some disputed property.—Ten cents, boys!—He believed it was his, and took it.—Why don’t you pay up, you fellows?”

Nobody but Sellick, however, seemed to think it desirable to pay money for being landed on the tow-path; and Sellick was unwilling to pay for the crowd.

“On the whole,” remarked the steersman, “I guess I won’t take your money. You may all ride up to the Basin for nothing. But you’ll have to git off on the bridge, for we don’t stop.—No, sir!” as Sellick offered to lay his hand on the tiller. “You’re a perty good-lookin’ chap, but ye can’t come that nonsense here. I’m steersman of this craft, jest about now. You’re welcome to yer ride, gentlemen, bein’ friends of Jack’s. Remember me to him, will ye, when ye fall in with him?—which I hope you won’t in a hurry. Jest give him a hand-shake and a good word from his old chum Pete. Lay down that pike-pole, mister, or I’ll lay you down!”

“I’m going ashore!” cried Sellick.

“You’ll go ashore in a way you won’t like!” said Pete; and there stood two rough, reckless-looking deck hands ready to back him.

Sellick dropped the pole with a laugh, which did not seem so spontaneous and hearty as some of the outbursts of merriment in which that mirthful gentleman had been known to indulge.

The spectators on the shore understood the movement, and, at sight of the jolly constable and his companions carried off against their will by the slow-moving wheat-boat, sent after them a chorus of jeers and laughter, in which mingled the tone of one stern and angry voice, that of Squire Peternot, who struck the “heel-path” with his heavy horn-headed cane, exclaiming, “Hang the wretches! hang the miserable villains!”