"There weren"t any men," exclaimed Marian with sudden conviction.
"That boy"s taken our boat and rowed away."
"Yes, there were men," insisted Lucile. "I just saw a track in the sand. There it is." She pointed to the beach.
An inspection of the sand showed three sets of footprints leading to the water"s edge where a boat had been grounded. These same footprints were about the spot where the stolen boat had been launched.
"There"s one queer person among them," said Lucile, after studying the marks closely. "He limps; one step is long and one short, also one shoe is smaller than the other. We"d know that man if we ever saw him."
"Listen!" said Marian suddenly.
Out of the silence that ensued there came the faint pop-pop-pop of a motorboat.
"Behind the point," said Lucile.
"Our motorboat!" whispered Marian.
Without a word Lucile started down the beach, then up the creek. She was followed close by Marian. Tripped by creeping vines, torn at by underbrush, swished by wet ferns, they in time arrived at the point where the motorboat had been moored.
"Gone!" whispered Lucile.
"We"ve been deceived and robbed," said Marian mournfully. "Deceived by a boy. His companions left him swimming in the sea so we would find him. As soon as we were asleep, he crept away and towed the schooner down the river, then he flashed a signal and the others came in for him. Probably Indians and half-breeds. They might have left us a rowboat, at least!" she exclaimed in disgust.
With early dawn streaking the sky they sat down to consider. The loss of their motorboat was a serious matter. They had but a scant supply of food, and while their aunt might arrive at any moment, again she might not. If she did not, they had no way of leaving the island.
"We"d better go down the beach," said Marian. "They might have engine trouble, or something, and be obliged to land, then perhaps we could somehow get our boat."
"It"s the only thing we can do," said Lucile. "It"s a good thing we had our food supply in our tent, or they would have taken that."
"Speaking of food," said Marian, "I"m hungry. We"d better have our breakfast before we start."
CHAPTER II
A BOLD STROKE REWARDED
Bacon grease was spilled and toast burned in the preparation of breakfast, which was devoured in gulps. Then, with some misgivings but much determination, the two girls hurried away up the beach in the direction from whence had come the pop-popping of their stolen motorboat.
Coming at last to the place where sandy sh.o.r.e was replaced by ragged bowlders, they began making their way through the tangled ma.s.s of underbrush, fallen tree-trunks and ferns, across the point of land which cut them off from the next sandy beach.
"This would be splendid if it wasn"t so serious," said Marian as they reached the crest of the ridge and prepared to descend. "I always did like rummaging about in an unexplored wilderness. Look at that fallen yellow-pine; eight feet through if it is an inch; and the ferns are almost tall enough to hide it. And look at those tamaracks down in that gully; they look like black knights. Wouldn"t they make a picture?"
"Not just now; come on," exclaimed Lucile, who was weary of battling with the jungle. "Let"s get down to the beach and see what"s there.
There"s a long stretch of beach, I think, maybe half a mile. But we must be careful how we make our way down. We might discover something--and we might be discovered first."
To descend a rock-ribbed hill, overgrown with tangled underbrush and buried in decaying tree-trunks, is hardly easier than to ascend it.
Both girls were thoroughly out of breath as they finally parted the branches of a fir tree and peered through to where the beach, a yellow ribbon of sand, circled away to the north.
"Not there," whispered Marian.
Lucile gripped her cousin"s arm.
"What"s that thing two-thirds of the way down, at the water"s edge?"
"Don"t know. Rock maybe. Anyway, it"s not our motorboat."
"No, it"s not. It"s worth looking into, though. Let"s go."
Eagerly they hurried along over the hard-packed sand. The tide was ebbing; the beach was like a floor. Their steps quickened as they approached the object. At last, less than half-conscious of what they were doing, they broke into a run. The thing they had seen was a boat.
And a boat to persons in their position was a thing to be prized.
Arrived at its side, they looked it over for a moment in silence.
"It"s pretty poor and very heavy, but it will float, I think," was Marian"s first comment.
"It"s theirs. Thought it wasn"t worth risking a stop for."
"But how did they get into our camp? We haven"t seen their tracks through the brush."
"Probably took up one small stream and down another."
The boat they had found was a wide, heavy, flat-bottomed affair, such a craft as is used by fishermen in tending pond-nets.
For a time the two girls stood there undecided. The chances of their recovering the motorboat seemed very poor indeed. To go forward in this heavy boat meant hours of hand-blistering rowing to bring them back to camp. Yet the thought of returning to tell Lucile"s brother that they had lost his motorboat was disheartening. To go on seemed dangerous. True, they had rifles but they were, after all, but two girls against three rough men. In spite of all this, they decided in the end to go on. Pushing the boat into the sea they rowed out a few fathoms, then set the sail and bore away before the brisk breeze. The fact that the oar-locks, which were mere wooden pegs, were worn smooth and shiny, told that the boat had not been long unused.
In a short time they found themselves well out from sh.o.r.e in a gently rippling sea, while the point, behind which lay their camp, grew smaller and smaller in the distance.
Presently they cleared a wooded point of land and came in view of a short line of beach. Deep set in a narrow bay, it might have escaped the eye of a less observant person than Marian; so, too, might the white speck that shone from the brown surface of that beach.
"What"s that in the center?" she mumbled, reaching for the binoculars by her side. "It"s our schooner," she exclaimed after a moment"s survey. "Yes, sir, it is! Anyway, it"s a motor-boat, and if not ours, whose then?"
"We"d better pull in behind the point, drag our boat up on the rocks and come round by land," whispered Lucile.
"Yes, if we dare," said Marian, overcome for a moment with fear. "If they have seen us and come out to meet us, what then?"
"I hardly think they"d see us without a field gla.s.s," said Lucile.
Bending to the oars they set their boat cutting across the wavelets that increased in size with the rising wind.
Ten minutes of hard pulling brought their boat in behind the point, where it was quieter water and better rowing. This took them to a position quite out of sight of the white spot on the distant beach. If the pirate robbers were truly located in the bay and had not seen the girls they were safe to steal up close.
"Well, suppose they have. If the worst comes to the worst we can escape into the brush," said Marian. "We won"t be worse off then than we are now."
"If only we can catch them off guard and get away with our motorboat!"
said Lucile fervently.
Two hours of fighting the wilderness brought them at last to the beginning of the short, sandy beach. By peering through the branches they discovered that a clump of young tamaracks, growing close down to the sh.o.r.e, still hid the white spot they had taken for their boat.