"THERE HE IS!"
"Well, what's the first thing to be done?" asked Andy, after he had
assisted Frank to pull the boat up on the beach beyond high-water mark.
"There's plenty to do," declared his brother. "In the first place
we've got to decide whether we'll stay on shore over night, or sleep on
the boat. If we stay on land we've got to bring our grub ashore.
Then, the next thing is to map out a plan so we can search the island,
and not go over the same ground twice."
"My! You'd think you had done this sort of thing all your life, and
had it down to a science," declared Andy with a laugh.
"Well, if it's going to be done at all, it might as well be done right.
This thing is getting serious, and I want to clear it up if possible.
For our sakes as well as for Paul's."
They talked the matter over at some length, and decided that it would
be more fun to camp on shore instead of going back and forth to the
boat to sleep and eat.
"The weather is warm," said Andy, "and we can sleep out in the open,
especially as we have plenty of blankets. And it will be jolly to
build a fire on shore and sit around it nights. Just like some old sea
pirates. Wow!"
"Easy!" cautioned his brother. "This isn't a joy-picnic. We're here
on serious business, and there may be some danger."
"But we might as well have some sport along with it," argued Andy, who
could not help seeing the funny or bright side of everything. Frank,
though more serious, did not despise a good time by any means, but he
went at matters more determinedly than did his brother.
"To my notion, the first thing to do is to go at this search with a
system," went on the older lad. "We'll climb up to the top of the
cliff, and see if we can make out anything from there. If that man is
here he may have set up a camp, and built a fire. If he has, we can
easily see it from the cliff. Then we will know where we're at."
To this Andy agreed, and soon they were toiling to the top of the high
land that ran lengthwise of the island, roughly dividing it into two
parts. It was no easy matter to reach the summit, and several times
the boys had to stop for a rest. But finally they were at the goal.
Below them, on all sides, washing the rocky shores of the island were
the heaving waters of the great bay. They could take in most of the
shore line, irregular and indented as it was, but, look as they did,
there was no sign of life.
They saw no curling smoke from a campfire. They saw no figure of a
man--the man whom they had so fruitlessly pursued. Nor was there any
vestige of a big motor boat half-burned.
"Well, nothing doing so far," remarked Frank, after a pause. "Now
we'll go down and begin a circuit of the shore and see what is in some
of the caves."
Slipping and sliding over the loose stones and gravel, they reached the
bottom of the slope near where they had drawn up their boat. The sight
of this craft gave Frank an idea.
"Suppose while we're on one side of the island that man--or
someone--should happen to come along?" he suggested. "He'd make off
with our boat, sure."
"Probably," agreed Andy. "But we can prevent that."
"How?"
"By hiding the oars. We'll shove 'em under some bushes quite a
distance back, so they can't be found."
Frank agreed that this was a good idea, and though there was a chance
that someone might land in a motor boat and tow off their rowing craft,
still they had to take that risk.
Then began a systematic search of the island. They went along the
shore, and looked into many small caves. The interior of these was
dark, but they had each provided a pocket portable electric flash lamp,
so that they were able to illuminate the caverns.
"Nothing here," announced Frank, after an inspection of the first one.
And that was the result in all the others that they penetrated before
dusk. By nightfall they had covered perhaps a quarter of the shore
line and then they turned back.
A roaring blaze was kindled on the sand from the plentiful supply of
driftwood that strewed the beach, and at the cheerful fire they sat and
talked as they ate their supper.
"Jolly fun, isn't it?" asked Andy.
"It sure is, even if we don't discover anything. I wish Paul was
along."
"Perhaps it's just as well he's home," commented the younger lad. "I
have an idea that this man keeps informed of our movements, and don't
fancy having him sneak up on us during the night, which he would be
very likely to do if Paul was with us."
"That's so. But, speaking of night, what are we going to do about
sleeping?"
"Under our boat, with our blankets spread out on the sands," said the
younger lad. "It's plenty warm enough."
It was not a half bad way to spend the night, especially as the
overturned rowboat kept off the chilly dew. Soon the two brothers were
soundly sleeping. They did not bother to keep a watch and even allowed
the fire to die out, taking the precaution, however, to put some wood
under the boat, where it would be dry in case of rain in the night.
"Well, now for another try at the mysterious man!" called Frank, as he
crawled out from under their shelter the next morning. "Maybe we'll
have better luck to-day."
They set off directly after breakfast, and took with them their
blankets and a supply of food. For they intended to make a half
circuit of the island that day, and they figured that night would find
them too far away from their camp to make it practical to return.
"We'll eat and sleep wherever we are when it's dark," decided Frank.
Their search that day was as fruitless as fore. Not a vestige of the
man or boat to be seen. They made a sort of shelter of driftwood and
seaweed before darkness fell, and built a rousing fire in front of it,
where they sat and talked until it was time to turn in.
"I don't like the looks of the weather," remarked Frank as he wrapped
up in his blankets.
"Why not?" his brother wanted to know.
"It looks like rain, and if it does we're going get wet."
"Oh, I guess not," said the younger lad easily. He never looked for
trouble.
It was along toward morning when Frank awoke from a troubled dream that
he was standing under a shower bath. He found it to be almost a
reality, for it was raining and the water was coming in through the
flimsy roof of their shelter.
"What's the matter?" asked Andy sleepily as he heard his brother moving
about.
"It's raining a flood! I'm drenched and so must you be."
"That's right, I am pretty wet. What had we better do; make for the
_Gull_?"
"What, in this storm and darkness? No, but I think there's a cave near
here. We can go in that and keep dry, at any rate."
"Go ahead, I'm with you."
They were fortunate in finding a small cavern, and in it was a supply
of dry wood. They made a fire, though the smoke was almost as bad as
the dampness, but it served to get rid of that chilly feeling.
It was still raining when morning came, but the boys were more cheerful
with the appearance of daylight, though they had to breakfast on cold
food, for all the wood was wet, and the supply in the cave had been
burned.
"Oh, well, we can go back to our first camp and row out to the _Gull_
pretty soon," remarked Frank. "Let's hurry on with our search now."
"I'm afraid it isn't going to amount to anything," declared Andy.
"That man isn't here, and he hasn't been here. Captain Trent's theory
was all right, but it didn't work out."
"Oh, I'm not going to give up yet," insisted Frank. "We have a good
part of the island to explore yet."
But, as they went farther on, it became more and more evident that
there was no one on the island but themselves--that is, unless the
mysterious man was hidden somewhere between them and their first
camp--a distance of about a mile.
"We'll cover that, and then all there is to do is to sail back home,"
proposed Andy, as they started on the last lap of their search, after
eating a hasty lunch. It had stopped raining, for which they were very
thankful.
There was one more cave to explore, and this was soon proved to contain
nothing but a colony of bats, which they disturbed with their flashing
light.
"I hope our boat's safe," mused Frank as they headed for the place
where they had left it. "I don't fancy swimming out to the _Gull_."
"Oh, it will be all right," asserted Andy confidently. "There she is,"
he added a moment later, as he made the turn around a jutting rock.
"She hasn't been moved since we slept under her."
Together they approached their boat. As he neared it Frank looked
critically at some marks in the wet sand--a series of footprints all
about the craft.
"Look!" he exclaimed, pointing to them.
"Well, what about it?" asked Andy calmly. "You and I made them."
"It rained since we were here night before last," said Frank in a low
voice, as if afraid someone would hear him. "Our footprints would have
been washed away. Someone has been here since--a man----"
He paused and looked down the beach. An indefinable something had
attracted his attention. The next moment he grasped Andy by the arm.
"There he is!" he exclaimed.
And there, about a quarter of a mile away was a man, standing beside a
big wrecked motor boat that was drawn up on the beach. It was the
mysterious personage for whom the Racer boys were searching.