Hal noted well the location and the type of house this drifter was, but instead of radioing for help, he shot back to Troja in his plane. At the camp, he sought out Colonel Wiljohn and told him of the case. All he had to go on was the fact that this old dwelling had drifted in from the creek bottoms, and that the sound of a woman's scream had seemed to come from it. Frail grounds for hoping that here might be Jacky Wiljohn's mother and the boy himself. But Colonel Wiljohn squared back his shoulders; he became all fire and energy in his preparations. A launch was got ready, blankets, hot soup in thermos bottles, axes to break any barriers, ropes.