Rowing against the current, sluggish though it was, soon began to tell on Pud’s arms and shoulders. The skiff, awash with water in the bottom, was old and decrepit, and the oars were mismated besides, one being wider of blade than the other and at least two inches longer. But Pud pulled on, breathing hard, feeling that a request for assistance would go ill with the heroic rôle he had assumed. Finally the junction of the Run with the second stream appeared in the darkness ahead and Tim announced the fact to Pud in a voice that held no joy of discovery. Pud stopped rowing and looked over his shoulder. Then he paddled silently forward to where he could see the place where the launch had lain. It was empty. He wasn’t greatly disappointed, though, for he had felt pretty certain that the men had gone on in it down that side stream, perhaps to some cabin near by, perhaps all the way to Swamp Hole. He swung the boat around the point and let it drift against the bank there. ‘I guess you fellows had better get out here,’ he announced. ‘I’ll go on a ways and see if I can’t find the launch. I guess you can find a good dry place, and you can light a fire if you like. I’ll be back as soon as I can, and if――’ ‘I ain’ goin’ stay here,’ declared Harmon mutinously. ‘I goin’ with you-all, Mister Pud, and find that there boat.’ ‘So am I,’ said Tim, not quite so heartily. ‘Anyway, we can keep on rowing until we see something like a house or a light or――or something.’ Harmon took one of the oars from the not unwilling Pud, and, with Tim keeping an alert and anxious watch from the stern, they set forth down the branch stream. The mist was thinning now, and already there was a rift in the clouds from which a few white stars peeked down upon the adventurers. Pud’s watch showed the time to be but a little after eight. He had judged the hour far later. With the lifting of the mist they were able to see for some distance, while the darker banks outlined their course for them plainly. The stream twisted often, as seemed the way of all streams in River Swamp, but no other waterways entered or left it, to their knowledge. At every turn Tim whispered hoarsely for caution, and when they were past his sigh of relief sounded louder than his whisper. They had gone, to Pud’s thinking, more than a mile when, over a hummock and between the bushes that clad it, a faint twinkle of light caught Tim’s eyes. Obediently the rowers stopped and let the slow current carry the skiff silently onward toward a curve a few rods distant. Once around it Pud stealthily dug his blade in the water and the skiff nosed silently into the bank. The stream ran straight for a distance and, some three hundred feet away, the square bulk of a cabin loomed against the night sky. A pale gleam of lamplight fell through a window. Before the cabin, under the shadow of the bank, lay a grayish blur. Straining his eyes, Pud made out the uncertain shape of the launch. CHAPTER XVI