A CRY FOR HELP
With anxious faces the travelers looked at one another. The alarm
caused by the discovery that they were on a floating island made
them forget their usual caution. Even so seasoned a tourist as Uriah
Snodgrass had been at fault, and he did not cease to blame himself for
it.
“We’ll do the best we can,” he said. “This is more my fault than any
one else's, as I proposed it in such a hurry.”
“Can’t we follow our trail back?” asked Ned.
“We can try, but I fancy we wandered over rather a crooked one.”
This they found to be true. They managed to follow their tracks
for some distance but soon lost the trail amid the trees and dense
underbrush.
They had come off without breakfast and the pangs of hunger began to
make themselves manifest. As for the professor, once the first shock of
being lost had passed, he became so much interested in catching some
curious bugs that he paid little attention to the boys. However, they
kept him in sight, for it would not do to become separated in this
dense forest.
“If we’d only told Bob to fire a gun or do something in case we didn’t
return soon,” remarked Ned with a sigh. “Poor Bob! I wish we were back
where he is.”
“No use wishing,” spoke up Jerry. “We’ve got to keep on. Maybe we’ll
hit the trail soon.”
On and on they wandered but only, it seemed, to get the more hopelessly
lost. The two boys were much alarmed, but the scientist, his whole mind
given over to collecting bugs, was somewhat indifferent.
“Hark! What was that?” cried Ned suddenly.
“Sounded like a gun,” said Jerry.
“It was a gun,” replied Ned. “It was over this way,” and he pointed to
the left. “Come on. Maybe it’s a party of hunters.”
Calling to the professor, the boys turned in the direction from which
the report had come. They had not gone far before another gun shot was
heard and they knew they were in the right direction, but toward whom
they were going they did know.
“Anyway it’s some person or persons,” argued Ned. “We can help them or
they can help us. We’ll have company if we are lost.”
The gun continued to be fired at intervals and but for this the three
would not have known how to proceed. The reports sound very close now
and in about ten minutes the two boys and the professor saw something
white glimmering before them in the light of the sun that was just
breaking through the clouds.
“There’s the lake! There’s water! We’re on the shore!” cried Jerry.
A few moments later they had emerged from the dense forest and saw
before them their own tent with Bob at the entrance loading and firing
his rifle.
“Good boy!” cried Ned. “How did you think to do it, old chap? How are
you?”
“I was worried when I found you all gone,” said the invalid. “I thought
you might have gone off in the woods and, as I looked out of the tent
I thought I saw the land moving. That scared me and I got up. I feared
I was on a floating island so I fired the gun to call you back as I
didn’t know what had happened while you were away.”
“You’re on a floating island all right,” remarked Jerry. “We got lost
in the woods, looking for some way out of the difficulty, and your
firing gave us the right direction.”
“How do you feel, Bob?” asked the professor.
“A little better, I think.”
But Bob’s flushed face and unnaturally bright eye did not bear out this
statement.
“You had better go back to bed,” decided Mr. Snodgrass. “I’ll give you
some more medicine. I think you are getting a touch of malaria mixed
with your fever.”
The exertion of getting out of bed and firing the gun had greatly
weakened Bob and he was much worse. They ate a hurried breakfast, and
the professor gave the patient some more medicine.
“We ought to look for our boat,” said Ned. “If we lose that it’s all up
with us. Suppose we walk along shore. We may get a sight of it.”
“Good idea,” agreed Uriah Snodgrass. “I’ll stay here with Bob and you
and Jerry can move in opposite directions. You can’t get lost if you
follow the shore and the one who first sights the boat can fire three
shots and they will call the other to him.”
Ned and Jerry agreed that this was a good plan and started off. Ned
walked quickly along the shore, keeping a watch for the _Dartaway_ but
the sight of her did not reward his eyes. As he was proceeding, having
tramped for over two hours, he heard a noise in the bushes just ahead
of him where a little point of land jutted out into the lake.
“Some one is coming,” reasoned the lad, holding his gun in readiness as
he thought of the ugly negroes.
An instant later a figure came into view. Ned started as he caught
sight of it. He could not see it distinctly but he observed a gun
barrel. Then he had a glimpse of a red cap.
“Jerry!” he called. “Is that you?”
“That’s who it is! I was just thinking I had met an Indian or a colored
man. See anything of the boat?” and Jerry stepped from behind the
bushes and confronted his chum.
“Not a sign. Did you?”
“No, and between us, we completed the circuit of the island. Must be
about six miles around it.”
“No boat,” murmured Ned. “What are we going to do?”
“Land only knows. This island is still floating, and it seems to be
continually moving in the same general direction--that is south. Maybe
the boat is drifting also and we’ll catch up to her or she will with
us.”
“I hope so. But we’d better go back now. I hate to take bad news to the
professor, though.”
There was no help for it, however, and soon the two youths were
tramping back toward camp. The scientist was much disappointed that
they had not been successful, but he was more worried over Bob’s
condition.
“I’m afraid of the result if he doesn’t get different medicine soon,”
he said.
The day was a gloomy one in spite of the fine weather that followed the
storm. The campers were in no mood for doing anything and sat about
listlessly, now and then taking an observation to see how their island
was behaving. It seemed to be about in the middle of the big lake,
though moving slowly southward.
“It’s bound to fetch up somewhere,” observed Ned.
“If it doesn’t strike some low place in the lake and become anchored,”
replied Jerry. “But I don’t see that we can do anything. We might swim
off when it gets near the mainland, but we’ll be in a bad way without
our boat.”
There were uneasy sleepers in camp that night. Early in the morning Ned
and Jerry were up to see if, by any chance, their boat had drifted near
them.
“We’ll take another tramp along shore,” proposed Jerry.
Once more they started off. Jerry had gone about two miles when he
heard three shots fired.
“That’s the signal!” he exclaimed. “Ned must have sighted the
_Dartaway_!”
He hurried back, passing through the camp and telling the professor
what he believed had happened. Nor was he mistaken. He found Ned pacing
up and down the shore, stripped to his underwear and ready to plunge
into the lake.
“Do you see it?” called Jerry.
“Looks like her off there,” and Ned pointed to a speck on the lake.
“I’m going to swim out to her.”
“Is it safe? There might be alligators or big snakes.”
“I’ve got to take a chance. We can never get away from here without the
boat. You watch me and if you see anything that looks dangerous--why
shoot.”
Ned waded out into the water until he got to his depth and then he
began swimming. Jerry anxiously watched for a sight of some big reptile
or saurian but his fears were groundless. In half an hour Ned had
reached the floating object.
“I wonder if it’s the boat?” said Jerry to himself.
His question was answered a moment later for, over the surface of the
lake sounded the explosions that told that Ned had started the engine
of the _Dartaway_.
In a short time the boat was close in shore. Jerry waded out to her and
then, in their recovered craft, the chums headed for camp, where they
found the professor much delighted at their success.
To avoid a repetition of the floating away of the boat they tied her by
a long rope to a tree close to the tent. Then, in much better spirits,
they sat down to plan what next to do.
“I think we’d better all get into the boat and hunt for the outlet of
this lake,” said Mr. Snodgrass. “There is no question but what the one
leading into Lake Okeechobee is closed. There must be another or the
water would not continue to fall. I believe that--”
The professor’s belief was destined to remain unannounced, for at that
instant there sounded a cry over the water.
“Help! Help! Help!”
“Those are girls’ voices!” remarked Jerry, springing to his feet.