Suddenly the lighter-minded Helen leaped to her feet from the bank on which she was sitting, and exclaimed:

"My goodness, Ruth! do you realize that we are marooned?"

"Marooned?" was the wondering rejoiner.

"Yes. Just as though we had been put ash.o.r.e here by a crew of mutineers and deserted--a pair of Robinson Crusoesses!"

"Your English--"

"Bother my English!"

"It would surely bother Mrs. Tellingham--if she could hear it, poor dear."

"Now, don't sidetrack me," remarked Helen. "Don't you see we are cast away on this desert isle with no means of getting back to the camp unless we swim?"

"Willie will be after us."

"But, will 'e?" asked the roguish Helen, punning on the boatman's name.

"Do be sensible--"

"Even good sense will not rescue us," interrupted Helen. "I'd like to get back to camp and hear all the exciting details. Totantora certainly can say less in a few moments than any person I ever saw. And Wonota is not much better."

"It does not matter how much they said or how little. The fat is all in the fire, I guess," groaned Ruth.

"Chirk up! Something is sure to turn up, I suppose. We won't be left here to starve," and Helen's eyes flashed her fun.

"Oh, _you_!" began Ruth, half laughing too. Then she stopped and held up her hand. "What's that?" she whispered.

The sound was repeated. A long-drawn "co-ee! co-ee!" which drained away into the depths of the forest-covered islands all about them. They were not where they could see a single isle known to be inhabited.

"Who is calling us?" demanded Helen.

"Hush!" commanded Ruth. "That is not for us. I have heard it before. It comes from the King of the Pipes' island--to be sure it does."

"He's calling for help!" gasped Helen.

"He is doing nothing of the kind. It is a signal." Ruth told Helen swiftly more of that early morning incident she and Chess Copley had observed when they saw the boxes carried ash.o.r.e from the motor-boat.

"Seems to me," grumbled Helen, "you have a lot of adventures with 'La.s.ses Copley, Ruth."

"Your own fault that you don't," returned her chum promptly. "You could have been along. But you don't like Mr. Copley."

"What has that to do with it?" rejoined Helen smartly. "I would go adventuring with any boy--even 'La.s.ses."

"Don't call him that," commanded Ruth.

"Pooh! He likes it. Or he used to."

"He is a nice fellow," Ruth declared, with more earnestness than there really seemed to be necessity for.

"I--de-clare!" murmured Helen. "Really! Does the wind sit in that quarter?"

CHAPTER XVII

A DETERMINATION

However the wind might sit and whatever may have been her secret opinion of Ruth Fielding's interest in Chessleigh Copley, Helen suddenly became mute regarding that young man.

But, after a moment, she was not at all mute upon the subject of the King of the Pipes and what might be going on on the island where they believed the queer old man had his headquarters.

"If it should be smugglers over there--only fancy!" sighed Helen ecstatically. "Diamonds and silks and lots of precious things! My, oh, my!"

"Better than pirates?" laughed Ruth.

"Consider!" cried her chum boldly. "I said that island looked like a pirate's den from the start."

"Your fore-sight-hind-sight is wonderful," declared Ruth, shaking her head and making big eyes at her friend.

"Don't laugh--Oh! What's that?"

From over the water, and unmistakably from the rocky island on the summit of which the blasted beech stood--a prominent landmark--came the strange cry, "co-ee! co-ee!" which they had heard before.

"Do you suppose that poor old man is calling for help?" hesitated Ruth.

"Your grandmother's aunt!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Helen, in disgust.

"We-ell that is even a more roundabout relationship than that between Aunt Alvirah Boggs and me. Poor old soul, she is n.o.body's relation, as she often says, but everybody's aunt."

"There goes the signal again, and here comes that boat!" exclaimed Helen suddenly.

"What boat?" demanded Ruth, looking in the direction of the distant Canadian island, toward which the canoe, with Totantora and Wonota in it, had now disappeared.

"Turn around--do!" exclaimed Helen. "This way. That is the same boat we saw going by some time ago. The boat with the yellow lady in it, as Wonota called her."

"This is very strange," murmured Ruth.

"But the yellow lady is not with those men now," said Helen.

"I do not see any woman aboard," admitted her friend.

The boat--going not so fast now--crossed their line of vision and finally rounded the end of the island on which the two chums believed the queer old man resided. At least, somebody had uttered the strange, shrill cry from that very spot.

"Oh, dear! If we were not marooned here!" grumbled Helen.