Then the dragging for Katy was resumed; but as there was much more doubt
in regard to the place where she went down than there was about the place
of the accident, the search was more difficult and protracted. George
Gray never left Albert for a moment. George wanted to take the drag-rope
himself, but a feeling that he was eccentric, if not insane, kept those
in charge of the boat from giving it to him.
When Sunday morning came, Katy's body had not yet been found, and the
whole village flocked to the lake shore. These were the first deaths in
Metropolisville, and the catastrophe was so sudden and tragic that it
stirred the entire village in an extraordinary manner. All through that
cloudy Sunday forenoon, in a weary waiting, Charlton sat on the bank of
Diamond Lake.
"Mr. Charlton," said Gray, "git me into that air boat and I'll git done
with this. I've watched them fellers go round the place tell I can't
stan' it no longer."
The next time the boat faced toward the place where Charlton stood he
beckoned to them, and the boat came to the shore.
"Let Mr. Gray row a few times, won't you?" whispered Albert. "I think he
knows the place."
With that deference always paid to a man in grief, the man who had the
oars surrendered them to the Hoosier Poet, who rowed gently and carefully
toward the place where he and Albert had dived for Katy the night before.
The quick instinct of the trapper stood him in good stead now. The
perception and memory of locality and direction are developed to a degree
that seems all but supernatural in a man who lives a trapper's life.
"Now, watch out!" said Gray to the man with the rope, as they passed what
he thought to be the place. But the drag did not touch anything. Gray
then went round and pulled at right angles across his former course,
saying again, "Now, watch out!" as they passed the same spot. The man
who held the rope advised him to turn a little to the right, but Gray
stuck to his own infallible instinct, and crossed and re-crossed the same
point six times without success.
"You see," he remarked, "you kin come awful closte to a thing in the
water and not tech it. We ha'n't missed six foot nary time we passed
thar. It may take right smart rowin' to do it yet. But when you miss a
mark a-tryin' at it, you don't gain nothin' by shootin' wild. Now,
watch out!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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