Presently Paul heard a faint, wailing sound, coming from the mainland, but at first he paid little attention to it.  Then he noticed that Jim Hart had raised his head and was listening intently.  Naturally Paul then listened, too, with the same eager attention, and the faint wailing sound, singularly weird and strange in the night, came a second, and presently a third time.  But after that it was not repeated.  Long Jim Hart looked at the boy.

“You know what that is?” he said.

“The cry of the whip-poor-will.”

“The cry of the whip-poor-will, given three times!  The signal!  The boys are thar, an’ we must go fur ’em.”

“Of course,” said Paul.  “Do we need to return to the island for anything?”

“No; we have our rifles an’ ammunition with us.  We got to start right now, an’ Paul, don’t you splash any water with your paddle.”

Paul understood as well as Jim Hart the need of extreme caution, as the Miamis might be abroad, and he made every stroke steady and sure.  Jim Hart emitted the lonesome cry of the whip-poor-will once in return—­signal for signal—­and then they cut their way in silence through the dark.

They laid their course, according to agreement, for the drinking place at the mouth of the brook, and Paul’s heart beat with relief and gladness.  His comrades had come back, safe and sound.  It did not occur to him that any one of them might have fallen in the venture.  Half way to the mainland Jim Hart stopped the canoe, and listened a moment.

“I thought I heard somethin’ down the lake that sounded like a splash,” he said.

But he did not hear it again, and they resumed their progress.  Paul now saw the loom of the land, a darker outline in the darkness, and his heart, already beating fast, began to beat faster.  Suppose there should be some trick in the signal!  Suppose they should find the Miamis, and not their comrades, waiting for them!  He sought hard to pierce the darkness and see what might be there on the land before him.

The outline of the shore rose more distinctly out of the darkness, and the prow of the boat struck softly on the margin.  Then Paul saw a figure rise from the bushes, and after it another, and then a third, and then no more.  He could not see their faces, but it was the right number, and a vast relief surged up.  The three figures came down confidently to the canoe, and then the welcome voice of Henry Ware said in a low tone: 

“You are here, Paul!  You and Jim are on time to the minute!”

“An’ mighty glad I am, too,” said Shif’less Sol, in the same tone.  “I wuz never so tired before in all my life.  I think I must have trotted a thousan’ miles, an’ now I’m willin’ to let Jim Hart paddle me the rest o’ the way in a canoe.”

Tom Ross said nothing, merely showing his white teeth in a smile.

“The Miamis are about,” said Paul.  “They have been around the lake, and on it, for days, looking for something.”