CHAPTER VI
THE SCREAM IN THE WATERFALL
"How did this happen, Mr. Porter?" demanded Dr. Byrd sternly, yet withan unmistakable quaver in his voice.
"I--I don't know, sir," stammered the manual training instructor. "Ithought I heard his voice among the others on the way home."
The fact was, Mr. Porter thought no such thing. He was merely frightenedlest he be held responsible if anything serious had happened to Kenyonwhile the boy was in his charge. He felt guilty. He knew that he oughtto have called the roll to determine if all were present before startingback for the school.
"Did anybody see Hal or hear his voice on the way back?" called out thedoctor addressing the crowd of boys now gathered closely around him. Noone had.
"Maybe he's gone into the dining-room," suggested Mr. Porter in anunnatural tone.
"No, he didn't do anything of the sort," returned the doctor. "I've beensitting out here for ten minutes waiting for you. Not a boy has enteredthis building in that time."
There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments, and then thedoctor continued:
"If anything has happened to that boy I'm going to find out who'sresponsible."
"He was working in the river some o' the time and it's over his head,lots of places," piped one small boy in fearful accents.
"Oh, it's impossible for him to have been drowned," declared Mr. Porter."I kept my eyes on the boys in the river all the time they were there."
Dr. Byrd offered no reply to this assurance. He merely said:
"All you boys go in and get your supper; then go to bed early."
"Can't we go with you and hunt for Hal?" pleaded Charley Mason.
"No. I'm not going to run any risk of losing any more of you. Besides,you've done enough for one day. I know you're all tired."
"No we're not," responded several. The fact is, they were well tiredfrom their afternoon's work, but love for their lost schoolmate had arefreshing effect. But the master of the school would not yield and theywere forced to do as he said.
By this time Mr. Frankland had appeared, and as the boys filed into thewash room to prepare for supper, he was informed of the situation thathad caused such a commotion.
"We've got to go and look for that boy and stick to the hunt until wefind him--dead or alive," almost sobbed the doctor.
"Oh, it can't be as bad as that," reassured the hopeful Mr. Frankland."Hal's a pretty level-headed boy and will be showing up with anexplanation before long. I haven't known him to get into trouble yet,and nearly every other boy in the school has been in one sort of scrapeor another."
"I hope you're right, Frankland, but I very much fear otherwise. I can'tconceive of an explanation of his disappearance unless some seriousaccident has befallen him. But you go and find Pepper and have him getthe auto ready, Mr. Porter; and, Mr. Frankland, you get a couple oflong-handled rakes and some lanterns. I'll get my medical and surgicalcases and we'll be prepared for any emergency."
Pepper was soon found and instructed. A few words of explanation servedto put speed in his actions, and in fifteen minutes the large touringcar was backed out of the garage.
No unnecessary delay was permitted by the doctor. The medical andsurgical cases were put aboard and all climbed in. Mr. Frankland, withtwo rakes in hand, sat behind with Mr. Porter, who had charge of thelanterns, and Dr. Byrd took a seat in front with the chauffeur.
Pepperill Humphrey served as chauffeur as well as janitor at LakefarmInstitute. He was a wise old man, always ready with "home-remedy" adviceand droll humor. He could tell "bad boys" what was going to become ofthem more forebodingly, some said, than could any other forecaster ofhuman events.
He was peculiarly quiet on the present occasion. After receiving atwenty-word explanation from Mr. Frankland, he asked one or twoquestions and then said nothing more. His silence might have beenconstrued variously. He was fond of Hal, as was everybody else at theschool, and possibly he was stunned at the news received. But he wasobserved several times to nod his head vigorously and to mutter in avery positive manner.
The other members of the search party, however, were too much occupiedwith their own thoughts to ask for an explanation from thejanitor-chauffeur. They rode along in silence for most of the way. Thedoctor had gained all the information that seemed obtainable. Mr.Porter, because of the criticism he had received, wished to draw aslittle attention to himself as possible, and Mr. Frankland appreciatedthe embarrassment of the situation.
There was a fairly good road from the school to the northern pass of thecanyon, including a bridge over Lake River near its junction withFlathead River, which ran through the canyon, and along this theyadvanced close to the spot where the airship had struck. Here theystopped, and the search for Hal was started.
First they shouted his name again and again, permitting the echoes todie away after each shout; but no reply came. Then they lighted theirlanterns, one for each, and started in pairs up and down the bank of theriver.
Mr. Porter indicated the section of the stream along which Hal hadconducted his hunt for Mr. Miles' bag of souvenirs, and it was from amiddle point in this section that search for the missing boy began. Fora few hundred feet here the water was deep and comparatively quiet; butabove this calmer stretch was a succession of falls so noisy as to makeit necessary to shout in order to be heard.
The largest and noisiest of these falls was the lowest one. Dr. Byrd andMr. Porter went upstream as far as this cataract, and stood a short timegazing into the water. There was little comfort in the feelings thatpossessed them as they gazed. The falling water glittered in the yellowmoonlight, seeming to shine forth with a million ghost eyes, and in thenoise of that tumbling flood every now and then they heard a strangesharp sound that seemed to pierce them through.
Mr. Porter took hold of the doctor's sleeve and drew him away. Theywalked some distance down stream until their ordinary voices could beheard, and then Mr. Porter said:
"Let's not begin by raking the river. If he's drowned, we can't doanything for him; but if he's injured, he needs our aid."
"Well, where would you suggest that we hunt first?" inquired the doctor.
"In the timber and thickets near the falls. He may have gone in thereand got hurt."
"All right. We'll search every place you suggest before we rake theriver."
Mr. Frankland and Pepper were now observed coming up along the shore,and the doctor and Mr. Porter waited for them.
After the four were reunited, Mr. Frankland said:
"We've covered the ground pretty well down there. Everything's open andfairly level. We measured the water with our rake, too, and it isn'tover a boy's head any place, although it is swift as a millrace."
"If he's drowned, his body's probably in this deeper part near thefalls," said Dr. Byrd. "We're going up in the timber and hunt therefirst, and then come back here if we don't find him."
"It might be just possible that he waded over to the other side and washunting along the steep base of old Flathead and fell in there,"suggested Mr. Frankland.
"We'll hope not," returned the doctor; "but we'll follow that up afterwe've tried everything else."
The timber they now proceeded to search consisted principally of spruce,pines and cottonwood growing on a slope that ascended with the bed ofthe stream. The soil was fairly good here, being comparatively free fromsmall stones and gravel, but there were numerous large bowlders androcky projections that the search-party had to climb over or around.
They spent an hour and a half, walking, crawling and climbing over thisdifficult ground, flashing their lanterns into every hole or depression,and stopping every now and then to call Hal's name. At last,considerably disheartened, they returned to the bank of the river belowthe falls.
"Let's go down to the rapids and work up," suggested Mr. Porter. "He wasworking that way most of the time I think. I saw him down there anddidn't see him up here."
This proposal was agre
ed upon, so they walked down stream two hundredyards from the largest and lowest fall and began to work up. Two of themen held the lanterns, while the others thrust the long-handled rakesinto the water and felt along the bank.
They pushed the rakes out as far as they could and drew them in manytimes. On several occasions they were almost certain they had found thebody of the missing boy, but their discovery proved to be only a log ora tangled mass of sticks and weeds. Finally they worked up to the lowerwaterfall and then moved away from the roaring noise to a distance wherethey could hear each other talk.
"The only thing that seems to be left to do is to go to the other sideand rake the river bed over there," remarked Mr. Frankland.
"Yes, and if he was drowned even on that side, it'll be just our lucknot to find him," said Mr. Porter. "The body's probably drifted intomidstream and may be down past the rapids."
"If we don't find him to-night, we'll come back again to-morrow and dragthe river to its junction with Lake River," the doctor announceddeterminedly.
"There's something funny about them falls," remarked Pepper, who hadbeen strangely silent during the whole of the search thus far.
"What's that?" inquired Mr. Porter, who was still nervous and easilydrawn into almost any meaningless conversation.
"Don't you hear it?" explained the chauffeur. "That noise every littlebit. Sounds like a scream coming right out of the water."
"Oh, that's natural enough," declared the manual training instructor."It's a twist or eddy sucking into some crevice in the rocks."
"I don't believe it," insisted Pepper. "Many a time I've been here onSunday afternoon and set here listenin' to them falls, an' never beforeheard that noise."
"What do you think it is--a ghost?" inquired Mr. Porter with an uneasylaugh.
"No, sir," replied the other indignantly. "But it's something 'at oughtto be looked into. We're huntin' for a missin' boy, you know."
"There _is_ something strange in that sound," put in Dr. Byrd at thispoint. "I wonder what it can be. Mr. Porter, your explanation doesn'tsatisfy me."
"Nor me either," said Mr. Frankland.
Just then another and louder scream came seemingly right out of thetumbling flood, thrilling fearfully every member of the boy-huntingparty. For a few moments everybody present stood as if frozen to theground; then Dr. Byrd sprang forward exclaiming:
"Come on; we've got to find out what that means."