THE RAFT
With the night shut down upon Palm Island and the sea there was
absolutely no use in the anxious party standing longer at the inlet, out
of which the _Isobel_ had drifted, carrying the two little girls. Even
Ruth recognized the futility of remaining longer on the shore.
Neale hurried ahead to the camp and started a fire. They had plenty of
thoroughly seasoned driftwood, and when the flames began licking about
the broken chunks their hues of green, amber, and pink were very pretty.
To-night, however, even Agnes did not exclaim over the delicate beauty
of the flames.
The party ate what Neale and the girls prepared, and there was very
little said among the quintette. Agnes frequently went to Ruth and put
her arms about her. The younger sister felt so sorry for the older that
she almost forgot her own anxiety for the safety of the little girls.
Mr. Howbridge could say nothing to aid Ruth or the others or to make
them feel more cheerful. The absence of Tess and Dot was a thing that
could not be lessened by any further talk. Even now, in the pitch
darkness of the tropical night, the _Isobel_ might have come to grief
and the children be cast into the sea.
These thoughts were so bitter that occasionally the lawyer groaned
aloud. Luke, clinging to one of Ruth’s hands, felt the girl tremble
every time her guardian gave voice to his bitter feelings. Agnes sobbed
now and then convulsively. And for once Neale could find no silver
lining to this cloud of trouble.
The little girls had often caused the older ones anxiety; they had been
lost; they had got into mischief that might have proved dangerous; but
this situation seemed far and away more terrible than anything that had
previously happened to the Corner House girls.
Tess and Dot had drifted away once in a boat at Pleasant Cove, but Tom
Jonah, the faithful, had then been in their company. Now they were
adrift on an unknown sea, in the dark, and with a hundred perils
threatening them. Ruth felt that never before had her little sisters
been in such danger while she was unable to lift a finger to help them.
She scarcely touched the food placed before her. Even Luke could not
comfort Ruth Kenway now. In her mind continually danced possibilities of
disaster for the two children who, since their mother’s death, she had
attended so closely.
Her early duties as “little mother” had made Ruth seem really older than
her years. Her thoughtfulness for her three sisters had made her
different from other girls. Agnes often declared that Ruth “couldn’t
have any fun” because of the duties that took first place in her mind
and in her life.
The release from care that had been joined with the coming of the four
Kenways and their Aunt Sarah Maltby to the Corner House in Milton had
not entirely erased from Ruth’s mind certain remembrances connected with
their previous poverty in Bloomsburg. This fact, perhaps, made her all
the more charitable and thoughtful for other people’s troubles.
And now the occasion called up in the older girl’s mind the most doleful
thoughts and surmises. What might not happen to Tess and Dot out on the
sea in that unmanageable boat?
Ruth Kenway retired to the tent and nobody but Agnes followed to comfort
her. And Agnes was not much of a comforter. She gave way too easily to
her own despair to be of help to her sister.
The latter heard Mr. Howbridge and the boys talking together over the
embers of the fire long after Agnes had fallen into a restless sleep.
For her own part, Ruth could not sleep. She could not even close her
eyes.
The question which she knew was discussed by her three companions
outside her tent before they rolled up in their blankets was the
question that fretted persistently the girl’s mind: How to reach Tess
and Dot on the drifting boat?
If it was still adrift! Suppose it had crashed upon some rock—some
island shore? Suppose the _Isobel_ had really been wrecked at last? A
hole stove in her hull, perhaps, and the craft even now sinking with the
helpless children upon it?
Then Ruth heard the gentle soughing of the waves on the strand below the
camp, and she took heart again. The sea was so quiet, the wind was so
gentle, it scarcely seemed possible that the _Isobel_ could be wrecked.
But the wind and the current were both driving the motor-boat away from
Palm Island if, by chance, she was not cast away.
The fact of disaster Ruth tried to deny. The sea was so gentle even the
lightest bark must be safe upon it. There was practically no surf. The
waves merely lapped against the strand with a very soothing and
reassuring noise.
“Why, a mere raft would not be in danger!” the girl thought.
And with this conclusion there suddenly stabbed her mind the thought
that the means of following and rescuing Tess and Dot might lie in the
very thing she pictured. _A raft._
There were plenty of trees upon Palm Island, as well as much flotsam
timber on the shores of it. There was a heavy boat ax and a few other
tools that had been removed, fortunately enough, from the _Isobel_. In
the jungle were green vines and lianas as tough in fiber as commercial
rope. She knew just how the raft could be built and where. They could
strike the tent and make a big sail of it. If the trade wind continued
to blow, and she was sure it would do so, for its direction had been the
same since they had left St. Sergius, the raft would be propelled in the
same general direction as the _Isobel_.
She sat up and threw off her coverings. She could not wait until morning
to discuss this thing with Luke. When she peered out through the tent
opening only the blinking embers of the fire gave any light in the wood
at all. But she heard her friends breathing near her.
Luke was nearest. She crept over to him and shook the young fellow by
the shoulder.
“All right!” muttered the collegian. “What’s up?”
“I am,” said Ruth, in a shaky whisper.
“Is anything the matter?”
“Of course there is,” cried the girl, but under her breath. “Aren’t
those blessed children in danger?”
“But, Ruth! We can’t help that just now. Not while it’s dark.”
“And what are you going to do when light comes?” demanded Ruth, with
some exasperation.
Luke Shepard groaned. What could he say to soothe the girl of whom he
was so very fond?
“Hadn’t you better try to get some sleep, Ruth?” he finally said.
But he did not wholly know Ruth Kenway, much as he admired her. He had
not known her in the days when she had borne the entire burden of the
Kenways’ domestic troubles. He had no idea that her very active mind was
bound to exert itself until some reasonable method of helping Tess and
Dot was evolved.
“Listen!” she commanded, sternly. “Listen, Luke. The children must be
brought back.”
“Oh, Ruthie!”
“It may sound impossible to you, but it isn’t impossible. It means hard
work, and you boys and Mr. Howbridge must practically do it all. But I
have thought of a way.”
“Goodness me!” gasped Luke, sitting up quickly. “Come away from here.
Don’t wake Mr. Howbridge. You can tell me first, can’t you?”
“I mean to tell you first,” declared Ruth, quite undisturbed by his
expressed doubt.
Luke hurried her away from the camp. They reached the open beach where
the starlight gave to the scene a bland radiance. At another time both
the young people would have considered it a lovely view and would have
spoken of it. But now——
“What is it you have thought of, Ruth?” demanded the youth, holding her
hand and looking closely at her.
“I know how we can—how we must—go after Tess and Dot.”
“Oh, Ruth!”
She explained. The idea of a good-sized raft, with sail and two oars
(these had belonged to the _Isobel_), was rapidly sketched by the girl
in no faltering accents. Luke soon began to take fire at her plan. His
eyes sparkled and he could scarcely wait for her to complete her
details.
“Ruth! It’s a wonder of an idea! Of course we can!”
“Oh!” she said with a sudden sob, “if it were only daylight. All the
time the dear little things are floating farther and farther away.”
“Don’t say another word!” exclaimed Luke, eagerly. “I don’t care if it
is dark! Wait! What time is it?” He struck a match and looked at his
wrist watch. “Twelve-twenty-five. The darkest time of all the night, but
you can see pretty well out here on the shore. There are plenty of
fallen logs at the edge of the grove, over toward the inlet where the
_Isobel_ lay.”
“So there are, Luke.”
“We’ll want to build the raft there. Then we can push her out right into
the wake of the motorboat. I’ll wake Neale. Don’t disturb your guardian
yet. Neale and I can do a lot before morning.”
“Oh, Luke,” she sighed, “you are such a comfort.”
Luke sped back to the camp and shook Neale awake in a jiffy, and without
hearing the anxious girl’s approbation.
“Wha-what’s the matter?” asked the younger youth, sitting up and rubbing
his eyes vigorously. “Nobody’s come to rescue us, has there, Luke?”
“Hush!” commanded the collegian. “No. But we’ve found a way to go after
Tess and Dot.”
“Crackey!” gasped Neale, struggling out from under the blanket. “It will
be a long, hard swim, Luke. I had thought of that.”
“Ruth has got an idea—and a good one,” declared Luke.
“Oh, that puts another face upon the matter, as the fellow said when he
put on his masque at the costume ball. Ruth is a regular ‘go-getter’
when it comes to ideas. What is it?”
He hurried after Luke through the grove and they came out upon the
easterly point of Palm Island, where the rocky reefs guarded the inlet
whence the motor-boat had floated away.
Luke had already begun in a low voice to explain to Neale the details of
Ruth’s idea. The younger fellow was immediately excited. The idea of
making a raft that would bear them all up and float them over the quiet
sea in pursuit of the motor-boat seemed the most feasible thing in the
world.
Perhaps, if Mr. Howbridge had been awakened at this time, his riper
judgment might have pointed out facts that would have seemed to show
flaws in Ruth’s idea. But Luke and Neale accepted the plan at its face
value and went to work immediately. As well as they could in the
starlight they began to drag certain fallen tree trunks together on the
shore by the deep inlet, ready for the real task of building the raft.
They had a rope and with its aid dragged the logs through the sands.
Agnes awoke and came out and insisted upon helping the young fellows.
Ruth, too, was too restless and excited to remain idle. Before dawn—oh,
long before!—all four of them had aching shoulders and backs and
blistered palms. But they worked on without complaint, believing that
they were at last doing something practical toward the recovery of the
lost children.