LOOKING FOR ADVENTURE
Imagine becoming bored on a desert island in the tropics! But that is
exactly what happened in the case of Dot Kenway. Nor was Tess in much
finer fettle on the fourth morning of their sojourn on Palm Island.
“I wish we had Tom Jonah here. Or even Billy Bumps,” said Tess to her
smaller sister. “There isn’t really much to play with on this place but
turtles. And they only lie on their backs and wave their paws at you.”
“It is too bad we didn’t bring that rabbit along that Sammy Pinkney gave
us for Christmas,” said Dot, quite as ruefully.
“That old Belgian hare!”
“We-ell, the Belgians are all right, I guess. They live over there in
Europe.”
“I guess that rabbit never came from Bel-Belgia, or whatever that place
is called,” said Tess.
“And we don’t even know _his_ name,” went on Dot. “We came away so soon
after Christmas, and it snowed in between, that I didn’t see that rabbit
at all. But Uncle Rufus said it had a good appetite.”
“I’m hungry myself,” announced Tess, rather despondently. “If I tell
Ruth she’ll only give me some funny fruit and tell me to eat it and be
thankful.”
“M-mm. I know,” rejoined Dot, appreciating this. “But how can you be
thankful for something you don’t want? Now, if I had a piece of bread
and butter——”
“Oh! And with honey on it!”
“No. Apricot jam. I like that better.”
“Of all the stingy children!” exclaimed Tess, in a strangely quarrelsome
mood for her. “When I want honey!”
“Can’t you have honey if you want to? And me have apricot jam? It’s only
in our minds, anyway,” mourned Dot, hugging up the Alice-doll. “Say,
Tess, let’s do something.”
“What is there to do in this place?” repeated her sister despondently.
“Mr. Howbridge and Luke and Neale have gone hunting for springs again.
Ruth told them she had just got to have fresh water. I don’t know what
for,” Dot remarked. “They have almost got the engine fixed. I heard
Neale say so. Let us go see it.”
This suggestion for action was better than no action at all. Tess
agreed, and, unseen by the older girls, the two little ones made their
way down to the rocky cove where the Isobel lay. She was not even at
anchor now, for the anchor had been raised and the motor-boat drawn very
close in to the rocks, as it was high tide. The log still lay like a
gangplank from the rock to the forward part of the Isobel.
The boys and Mr. Howbridge had gone away and left the motor-boat in
rather a precarious situation, but quite without realizing it. The tide
was rising and that served to lift the log and make it rather unsafe for
Tess and Dot to pass over; and when the little girls had done so,
splash! The log fell into the water between the boat and the shore.
“O-oo! Now see what we’ve done,” gasped Dot.
“Never mind. Neale will find another. And we can stay here till he comes
back,” Tess declared.
She did not notice, however, that the accident had brought a sudden
strain upon the single line that bound the boat to the shore. This
mooring was not very skillfully made, for neither Neale nor Luke were
practical sailors, and so were not professional rope-knotters.
At any rate, with the falling of the log the hull of the _Isobel_
strained at the small hawser, and that rope loosened, almost
imperceptibly at first, from the rock around which it had been looped.
Tess and Dot did not see this. They got down into the cockpit, and from
that place they could not see the rocks without standing up, nor could
they be seen themselves from the shore.
The motor-boat rose and fell rather pleasantly upon the surface of the
inlet. The tide had now risen to its highest point, and as it turned and
began to recede, naturally everything afloat in the little cove began to
drift out to sea. The log that had served as a gangplank between the
_Isobel_ and the shore went first, but soon the motor-boat likewise got
into the tide and blundered out through the mouth of the narrow estuary.
Strange as it may seem, the two smallest Corner House girls did not
discover what had happened until the bobbing motor-boat was quite a long
way from the island. It was then the freshening wind, that made the boat
“joggle,” which first annoyed Dot Kenway.
“I wish this boat would stay still, Tess,” she complained. “Let’s go
back to the land. I feel all joggled up inside me.”
Tess jumped up. “Why-ee!” she gasped. “Where—where is Palm Island?”
“Where is what?” her sister demanded, likewise scrambling to her feet.
They were both facing seaward. There were islands in that direction, but
smaller ones, and, it seemed to Tess and Dot, a vast distance away! Tess
whirled around. Palm Island was behind them. The motor-boat was
blundering away from their refuge and their sisters and their friends!
If Dot and Tess had been looking for adventure, they certainly had found
it this time.
“Is that Plam Island?” Dot demanded.
“Of course it is.”
“But—but what’s it doing ‘way over there?” quavered Dot. “I thought we
were tied to it.”
“We came untied I guess,” said Tess, despondently, seeing the rope
dragging over the boat’s rail. “Oh, dear me!”
“I told you I didn’t like this place, Tess Kenway!” stormed Dot. “And
now see what’s happened to us. Ruthie will be awful mad.”
But Tess knew that Ruth would experience a different emotion from anger.
As long as the boat remained on even keel Tess did not see how much harm
could come to them. But suppose they bumped into something?
“Let’s shout!” she urged, climbing upon one of the seats. “Maybe they
will hear us.”
But the wind was blowing from the direction of Palm Island, and that and
the tide carried the _Isobel_ away from their friends, and carried the
sound of their shrill voices away, too.
It was an hour later before anybody on Palm Island imagined that
anything out of the way had befallen Tess and Dot Kenway.
There was good reason for the fact that Tess and Dot were not soon
missed. The older sisters had left the little ones playing near the tent
when they strolled away themselves to see if any success was attending
the efforts of the boys and Mr. Howbridge in their search for water.
The heat of the day was over. The breeze had sprung up and laved their
faces delightfully as the girls strolled toward the hill on which the
big palm tree grew.
The two older sisters found that the boys and their guardian had gone
around the foot of the hill which occupied the middle of Palm Island,
but they started to mount the slope of the smooth eminence.
“I wish we could see some boat and attract its attention,” sighed Ruth,
as they went on. “Then it wouldn’t matter about the water supply or
about repairing the engine of the Isobel.”
“I guess we have been castaways long enough,” agreed Agnes. “It would be
awful if we had to stay here much longer. Think of our nice dresses
there at the hotel all going to waste.”
Ruth smiled indulgently. “We can wear them when we go back North.”
“Oh, they’ll be almost old by that time,” declared the younger girl
sadly. “And I did so want to wear ’em where Nalbro Hastings and those
other girls could see that we weren’t frumps, even if we did come from
Milton.”
“I never!” exclaimed Ruth, laughing. “You are the strangest girl,
Aggie.”
“Ought not to be strange to you, Ruthie. You’ve known me all my life,”
remarked the flyaway sister, smiling. “And I did want to sport my new
frocks!”
“So you shall,” said Ruth, comfortingly. “I don’t think we shall have to
remain on Palm Island much longer. Luke tells me he is sure that the
engine will be all right soon. He knows a good deal about such things.”
“Oh, Ruth!” exclaimed Agnes suddenly, “there’s a boat coming to rescue
us now!”
They were about half way up the slope of the hill. Agnes had turned to
look back, and right over the lower trees and the rocky end of the
island a craft of some kind was visible. Ruth, quite as excited as her
sister, turned sharply to look in the direction Agnes pointed.
“From that way?” she murmured. “St. Sergius isn’t over there, Aggie.”
“I don’t care. You can see the boat, can’t you?” cried Agnes eagerly.
“Hurrah! I want to tell Neale. I saw the boat first.”
“Wait!” commanded Ruth, seizing the excited girl’s arm. “That boat is
not coming this way, I am afraid.”
“It’s never got past the island without our seeing it!” wailed Agnes.
“Never!”
“I—don’t—know——”
“I wish we had put up a flag—a signal of some kind,” Agnes continued to
complain. “Oh, Ruthie! If they have gone right by without seeing us! I
would have sacrificed my sports skirt for a flag and worn—worn a gunny
sack, if necessary! This is too mean.”
“Wait, Aggie!” exclaimed Ruth, still staring at the boat Agnes had first
spied. “There—there is something the matter with that boat. What propels
it?”
“It is a motor-boat like ours, of course,” rejoined Agnes quickly.
“It is not moving fast enough for that. And there is no sail. And I
cannot see anything moving on that boat.”
“For goodness’ sake, Ruthie! Is it a boat sailing all by itself?” Agnes
demanded.
“Exactly. That is what it is. The boat has broken away——”
“Well, now!” gasped Agnes. “Isn’t that strange? And it’s a motor-boat
like the _Isobel_.”
“Oh, Aggie!” cried Ruth, turning to her with a frightened face now.
“Aggie! It is our boat! It’s broken away, somehow. We are now really
cast away on this island. What will become of us?”
Agnes Kenway felt immense dismay at the possibility of the truth of her
sister’s statement. But Ruth was so utterly despairing that the younger
girl felt she must comfort her.
“If it’s the _Isobel_, we’re lucky not to be in her,” she said. “I guess
we would have to wait for some other boat to come after us, anyway; so
we are no worse off than we were before.”
“How can you say that?” Ruth demanded. “Luke was sure he had almost got
at the cause of the trouble with the mechanism.”
“Well, let’s not cry about it,” begged Agnes. “Oh, don’t, Ruth! If Tess
and Dot see you in tears——”
Ruth dried her eyes suddenly. “I wonder where the children are?” she
murmured. “I wonder if they have seen the boat drifting away?”
“And I don’t believe Neale O’Neil knows about it. I am going to run and
tell him,” said Agnes, who always made Neale a partner in everything
that happened to her.
She darted off excitedly. Ruth started back toward their camp. As she
pushed through the shrubs, hastening her steps, she wondered where Tess
and Dot were. By and by she began to call them by name; but she received
no reply save the raucous cries of the water-fowl and the chattering of
parakeets.
Ruth Kenway began to be alarmed in earnest.