basket, thus making them appear to
have been cut from a bundle. But there are a thousand ways! Now we
proceed with this. Later we probe down gas jets, water spouts and
outlets, empty lamp reservoirs, unscrew the backs of mirrors, search key
holes, unravel carpets----"

"Heavens," I cried, seeing that in his zeal for doing this
professionally he was making himself absurd; and Tommy burst into a
hearty laugh, saying:

"Gezabo, there isn't a girl in a million who'd think of those places,
and if she did she wouldn't credit us with enough sense to find 'em.
Call off your bloodhounds! There's no message for us, that's a cinch!
Let's get busy at once on something practical!"

"That's what I say," I chipped in. "It's only eleven o'clock, and we
have eight good hours of daylight. Let's go back and call Gates for a
conference, without losing a minute!"

"You may be right," he sighed, "but--well, let us go, as you say. With
eight hours of light we can accomplish everything. Today may bring
success!"

CHAPTER XII

THE HURRICANE

Tommy's spirits were sky high. While treating our situation seriously he
found in every phase of it some new sense of humor, whereas the
professor looked on with grim purpose. Gates occupied rather a neutral
ground, I think, perhaps alternately leaning one way and the other. But
I was gripped by a single idea, a deep and growing love for this
fugitive girl to whom I had never spoken, who I did not know, but had
sworn to rescue.

As we climbed back to the _Whim_ and summoned Gates it was understood
that haste meant everything. Yet we could not very well move before
knowing whither the outlaw crew had gone. That they made for Florida
was, of course, self-evident, but where upon that vast stretch of coast?
Would they entrench and wait? Were they even now watching with
binoculars from a pine tree top to discover our next move, or had they
set out at once for the security of the Everglades, the prairies, or the
forests? Any of those trackless vastnesses to the eastward might hide a
battalion of men for months; therefore, in case they had run, what hope
of finding them?

These and other facts I put before my friends while they listened in
glum silence--indeed, with hardly a move except the pipes carried
mechanically to their lips or down. Tommy's brier was empty, but his
teeth were tight upon the stem and I saw the muscles of his jaws
working, as though grinding up my conclusions.

"So that