The drab, silent river went placidly, mockingly
on its way down to the sea, telling no tales: if Rosabel Vick was
rolling, gliding along the bottom, gently urged by the current,
the grim waters covered well the secret.
The word went from lip to lip that motor-boats were on the way
down from the city, with police officers and grappling-hooks and
men experienced in the gruesome business of "dragging." The boss
of the railway construction gang at Hawkins, where the new bridge
was being built, had started for Windomville with a quantity of
dynamite to be exploded on the bottom of the river in the hope and
expectation of bringing the body to the surface.
CHAPTER XXI
OUT OF THE NIGHT
All afternoon the search continued. At intervals and at widely
separated points dull explosions took place on the bed of the river,
creating smooth, round hillocks that lasted for the fraction of a
second and then dissolved into swift-spreading wavelets, stained
a dirty yellow by the upheaval of sand and mud, and went racing in
ruffles to the banks which they tenderly licked before they died.
White-bellied fish, killed by the shock of the explosions, came
to the surface and floated away,--scores of them, large and small.
Spider-like grappling hooks, with their curving iron prongs, raked
the bottom from side to side, moving constantly downstream, feeling
here, there and everywhere with insensate fingers for the body of
Rosabel Vick.
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