Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/154

 "Miss Marceau had left me to take a path through the woods to a canoe she used in visiting the homes of some of her pupils whose parents live on these islands. I was still wondering why the devil the boat didn't turn up, when I heard her scream. Naturally, I rushed to the rescue."

"Naturally," agreed Scanlon, but his eyes were narrowing and he was regaining his self-control.

"Naturally!" snapped Quackenbaugh.

"This fellow with the Vandyke beard was after her," Henry was continuing.

"And you—you plugged him?" broke in Scanlon like a flash, yellow eyes lighting, but with something like relief. "And you—you plugged him?" demanded the Chief Counsel. "I thought I heard a pistol shot."

There came a quick new light to Henry Harrington's eyes. "Come and see," he said.

"But about the gold?" reminded Quackenbaugh.

"I was gone not more than seven or eight minutes," declared Henry. "When I came back it was gone. There was no one in sight—nothing but the mark of a prow in the sand as you see it there with the footsteps leading to and from it."

"You're right, it was the man in the skiff," decided Quackenbaugh in that abrupt manner of his. "Where the devil could the fellow have got to so quick? I'll jump in the launch and take a quick scout around; and if I don't see anything, get to the nearest telephone and start Cosby." Cosby was the Boland secret service chief. "You and Harrington hike back to the dead man and see what story he's got to tell. If we get that money back, we've got to get it quick. And we've got to get it back, you bet your life!"