Merry, as well as Clancy, had heard the rush and roar of the bowlder. But Merry was not in a position to see it, and his first intimation of the real cause of the trouble came with Clancy’s jump, the sweeping of the canoe, and the splash of the bowlder in the water.
Bleeker and Hotchkiss, no less than the lads on the shore, were thunder-struck. The second canoe was far enough away to be out of danger, although it bobbed perilously in the swash of the waves.
The huge rock had dropped so unexpectedly, and had missed Merriwell and Clancy so narrowly, that all who watched it were paralyzed for a space. Then, when the first shock had worn away, a wild turmoil of voices went up from the bank and from the other canoe.
“A rock was loosened and dropped from the cliff!” called some one huskily.
“A bowlder was never known to drop from the Point!” protested another.
“An accident, that’s all!” asserted a third. “How could it have been anything else?”
Ballard, pale as death, was launching a canoe to the other bank. Dart and another lad crowded in with him.
The seething waters had quieted about the foot of the cliff, and Bleeker and Hotch were paddling close to Merriwell and Clancy, who were swimming to get around the Point.
“Are you all right, fellows?” Bleeker asked in a shaking voice.
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“I am,” answered Merry. “How about you, Clan?”
“Physically, I’m all to the good, but mentally I’m badly disabled,” Clancy answered. “A fine course you laid out for us, Bleek,” he added.
“It’s Jode Lenning’s course,” said Bleeker. “I’ve been here a good many times, during the last six years, and I never knew a rock to fall from the cliff before. I can’t understand it.”
“It was an accident, Bleek,” said Frank, “and the bowlder missed us. A miss, you know, is as good as a mile. Better have somebody look after the canoe.”
“The fellows in one of the other canoes are towing it in,” said Hotch.
Merry and Clancy, reaching the sloping bank below the Point, walked up out of the water. Both were still a little dazed by the recent mishap.
Ballard, all a-tremble from the shock, landed and hurried to the side of his chums.
“You got out of that by the skin of your teeth,” said he. “Thunder! I thought you were gone, for sure. That bowlder wasn’t more than a second coming down, but it seemed to me like a year before it hit the water.”
“It must have been an accident,” commented Dart.
“No,” said Bleeker, and threw a significant look at Merriwell.
Bleeker had had a little time in which to collect his thoughts, and he was doing some reasoning, with Blunt’s warning for a background.
“I agree with Dart,” spoke up Merriwell. “I don’t see how it could have been anything but an accident.”
“I do,” muttered Bleeker darkly. “Some of you fellows get up on top of the Point. Hustle! See if you can find any one there. If you lose too much time, there isn’t a chance.”
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Ballard led the rush up the steep slope, taking the roundabout way necessary for gaining the crest of the cliff. Several of the wondering lads followed Ballard. They were hardly started on their climb when a canoe from the opposite shore came nosing to the bank. It held two of the campers. As they arose, they got a bit of a glimpse of the water on the other side of the Point.
“Look!” one of them cried. “There’s our other canoe—and Lenning and Shoup!”
Owing to the bend in the river, nothing could be seen from the bank where Merry and the rest were standing. Merry, the instant he heard the shouted warning, started for the water’s edge and flung himself into the craft which Bleeker and Hotchkiss had used for the race.
“Come on, Clan!” Frank called. “Here’s something we’ve got to look into—and we must be quick about it.”
Clancy jumped for the canoe as though touched by a live wire. Through his befogged brain an inkling of his chum’s purpose had drifted.
In almost less time than it takes to tell it, the canoe was racing across the water, Merry in the bow and Clancy in the stern. Other canoes followed, for a feeling that something more of a portentous nature was about to happen ran through every lad’s nerves.
When well into the river, Frank could look ahead, as the vista opened out above the Point, and see the stolen canoe, with the two thieves aboard. Shoup was in the stern and Lenning at the bow. Both were using their paddles like mad, evidently trying to get across to the other bank.
“Get busy, Clan!” called Merriwell quietly, but compellingly. “I think we can overhaul those fellows before they land.”
“We’ll have to go some, if we do,” was the answer.
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“I guess we’ve shown that we can do that, all right.”
Shoup, taking a survey over his shoulder, saw that he and Lenning were pursued. He spoke to Lenning, and both bent fiercely to their paddling.
They were awkward at the work, and the canoe zigzagged back and forth. But, in spite of the poor paddling, it looked as though the two might reach the bank before Merriwell and Clancy could get to them.
“Great guns!&rd............