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 sh.o.r.e.

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 n.o.body 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 sh.o.r.e? 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 rea.s.suring 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 sh.o.r.es 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 sh.o.r.e. 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."