"Just duck and say nothing," called Jerry guardedly to Dave. "He
might try to stop us."

So Dave scurried into the shadows of near-by trees, while Jerry bent
low over his oars and noiselessly shot the boat out into safe
waters. It was the work of only a few minutes to push the nose of
his boat high and dry on the sand of the opposite shore. He was in
the heavy shadow of a big cottonwood and felt safe from peering
eyes, so without wasting time to mask his movements he jumped out
and scurried along the bank. A level stretch of a hundred yards
carried him around a bend; he stopped for a brief rest and a glance
toward the other side, where a great crashing of bushes told him
that Dave was safely out of sight and well on his way toward the
riffles.

A chuckle almost escaped Jerry as he listened to the thrashing
about, but remembrance of their errand killed the laughter. In fact,
the chuckle turned to a genuine sob, for Tod Fulton was his closest
chum. So, without an instant's pause, he made his way to the foot of
the riffles, where their search would really begin. How soon it
would end, there was no telling; it might be one mile; it might be
twenty. But Jerry grimly determined that he would carry the
undertaking through to the end.

The riffles was really a succession of pools of treacherous depths,
joined by foaming, rock-broken rapids. The bank was lined with great
boulders through which a day-time path wound a difficult way. Jerry
wasted no time in trying to follow it, but skirted far around
through a waist-high cornfield. A barb-wire fence held him prisoner