“Yes; I make out a couple of lanterns,” assented Dave.  “Well”—–­as Dick pulled in the horse—–­“aren’t you going to drive over there?”

“That’s what I want to think about,” declared young Prescott.  “I want to go at the job the right way—–­the way that real newspapermen would use.”

CHAPTER III

DICK STUMBLES ON SOMETHING

A few moments later Dick Prescott guided the horse down a shaded lane.  “Whoa!” he called, and got out.

“What, now?” questioned Darrin, as his chum began to hitch the horse to a tree.

“I’m going to prowl over by the bend, and see who’s there and what they are doing.”

Having tied the horse, Dick turned and nodded to his friend to walk along with him.

“You know Bradley told us,” Prescott explained, “that the police do not know that Dodge’s disappearance has leaked out to the press.  Most folks in Gridley know that I write for ‘The Blade.’  So I’m in no hurry to show up among the searchers.  I intend, instead, to see what they’re doing.  By going quietly we can approach, through that wood, and get close enough to see and hear without making our presence known.”

“I understand,” nodded Darrin.

Within two or three minutes the High School reporter and his chum had gained a point in the bushes barely one hundred and fifty feet away from where two men and a boy, carrying between them two lanterns, were closely examining the ground near the bank.  One of the men was Hemingway, who was a sort of detective on the Gridley police force.  The other man was a member of the uniformed force, though just now in citizen’s dress.  The boy was Bert Dodge, son of the missing banker, and one of the best football men of the senior class of Gridley High School.

“It’s odd that we can’t find where the trail leads to,” the eavesdroppers heard Hemingway mutter presently.

“I’m afraid,” replied young Dodge, with a slight choke in his voice, “that our failure is due to the fact that water doesn’t leave any trail.”

“So you think your father drowned himself?” asked Hemingway, looking sharply at the banker’s son.

“If he didn’t, then some one must have pushed him into the river,” argued Bert, in an unsteady voice.

“And I’m just about as much of the opinion,” retorted Hemingway, “that your father left his hat and coat here, or sent them here, and didn’t even get his feet wet.”

“That’s preposterous,” argued the son, half indignantly.

“Well, there is the spot, right there, where the hat and coat were found.  Now, for a hundred feet away, either up or down stream, the ground is soft.  Yet there are no tracks such as your father would have left had he taken to the water close to where he left his discarded garments,” argued Hemingway, swinging his lantern about.

“We’ve pretty well trodden down whatever footprints might have been here,” disputed Bert Dodge.  “I shan’t feel satisfied until daylight comes and we’ve had a good chance to have the river dragged.”