chral irony. He bent and scratched his ankles. “Try another rope.”
“You wait,” Fairchild retorted, “wait ten minutes, then talk. We'll be under full steam in ten minutes. . . . Where did that boat come from?”
This boat was a skiff, come when and from where they knew not; and beneath the drowsy afternoon there came faintly from somewhere up the lake the fretful sound of a motor boat engine. The skiff drew alongside, manned by a malariaridden man wearing a woman’s dilapidated hat of black straw that lent him a vaguely bereaved air.
“Whar’s the drownded feller?” he asked, grasping the rail.
“We don’t know,” Fairchild answered. “We missed him somewhere between here and the shore.” He extended his arm. The newcomer followed his gesture sadly.
“Any reward?”
“Reward?” repeated Fairchild.
“Reward?” Mrs. Maurier chimed in, breathlessly. “Yes, there is a reward: I offer a reward.”
“How much?”
“You find him first,” the Semitic man put in. “There’ll be a reward, all right.”
The man clung yet to the rail. “Have you drug fer him yet?”
“No, we’ve just started hunting,” Fairchild answered. “You go on and look around, and we'll get our boat and come out and help you. There’ll be a reward.”
The man pushed his skiff clear and engaged his oars. The sound of the motor boat grew clearer steadily; soon it came into view, with two men in it, and changed its course and bore down on the skiff. The fussy little engine ceased its racket and it slid up to the skiff, pushing a dying ripple under its
