Yes, the Colonel was here, a fine old fellow, doing great work with his crew of aviators. Too bad about the boy, though! Not a sign of him and the mother had ever been found. The big hotel at Malden, just below the forks of Pea River and the Choctawhatchee was flooded now, but it had been deserted for days, everybody had been gotten out in boats early in the flood. That young Mrs. Wiljohn and the boy had gone off in a canoe, picnicking, it seemed, up some little creek the day the floods had begun to rise. They'd never been heard of since. Which was something of a mystery, considering the number of boats and planes that had combed all sections in a special hunt for these two.