"Nothing doing on that line. You forget he was crippled long before the war. He couldn't get by a medical board. They'd turn him down in a second. If he was in this country at the time of the draft, he would have had no trouble getting an exemption. What I can't understand is why he, a New Yorker, should be hiding out here in the jungles of Indiana. There's something queer about that, my friend." "Kind of fishy," said Charlie darkly. Then upon reflection, he added with considerable vehemence: "Damn him!" Already half a dozen rowboats were out in the stream, with men peering over the sides into the deep, slow-moving water. Burk's Ferry did a thriving business. It plied back and forth from one "road-cut" to the other, crowded with foot passengers, all of whom studied the water intently. Men, women and children tramped close to the edge of both banks. People spoke in subdued voices; an atmosphere of the deepest solemnity hung over the scene. The sky itself was overcast; a raw wind moaned through the trees, sighing a requiem. The drab, silent river went placidly, mockingly on its way down to the sea, telling no tales: if Rosabel Vick was rolling, gliding along the bottom, gently urged by the current, the grim waters covered well the secret. The word went from lip to lip that motor-boats were on the way down from the city, with police officers and grappling-hooks and men experienced in the gruesome business of "dragging." The boss of the railway construction gang at Hawkins, where the new bridge was being built, had started for Windomville with a quantity of dynamite to be exploded on the bottom of the river in the hope and expectation of bringing the body to the surface. CHAPTER XXI OUT OF THE NIGHT All afternoon the search continued. At intervals and at widely separated points dull explosions took place on the bed of the river, creating smooth, round hillocks that lasted for the fraction of a second and then dissolved into swift-spreading wavelets, stained a dirty yellow by the upheaval of sand and mud, and went racing in ruffles to the banks which they tenderly licked before they died. White-bellied fish, killed by the shock of the explosions, came to the surface and floated away,--scores of them, large and small. Spider-like grappling hooks, with their curving iron prongs, raked the bottom from side to side, moving constantly downstream, feeling here, there and everywhere with insensate fingers for the body of Rosabel Vick. A pall settled over the river; it reached far beyond the environs of Windomville, for Amos Vick was a man known and respected by every farmer in the district. Night came. Courtney Thane, considerably shaken by the tragedy, set out immediately after dinner for the home of Alix Crown. He had been silent and depressed at dinner, taking his little part in the conversation, which dealt exclusively with the incomprehensible act of young Rosabel Vick.