But Mr. Howbridge and the two young fellows were determined to leave Ruth and Agnes in as comfortable a situation as possible. In the first place, although no one dwelt on the thought, n.o.body could tell how long they would be gone from Palm Island.

It was all very well to consider that there was a fair wind blowing away from the island, one that would presumably drive the raft on the course followed by the drifting motor-boat. But how would they ever be able to beat up against this same wind on their return?

Even Neale and Agnes kept still about this. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Once they find the two little girls and the motor-boat, and everything else must come right. That was the way the young people looked at it, anyway.

The repairs upon the engine of the _Isobel_ had been all but complete.

If the boat had not been wrecked upon one of the small islands, the trio hoped to finish the repairs easily and bring the craft back to Palm Island in triumph.

Now the party made haste to transfer all their belongings from the point where the old camp had been established to that spot west of the hill, at the spring. The spring was a fair-flowing stream that bubbled out from under a rock and had worn a course for itself in the sands to high water mark. When the party had first walked around the island they had overlooked this tiny rivulet, as the tide had been coming in and the brackish water had flowed up the course of it.

Agnes climbed the hill to the very foot of the huge palm, carrying an old pair of binoculars with her. She came down with flying hair and excited eyes.

"There is something flapping in the top of a palm tree on that first island! I can see it as plain as plain!" she cried.

"What is it-an old carrion crow?" demanded Neale.

"I don't mean that it is alive," returned Agnes. "It is a flag or something!"

"Do you suppose it is something the children have put up to attract our attention?" cried Ruth.

"If it is in the top of a tree, how did they get it up there?"

questioned Luke.

"We-ell. They put up something in the boat; Tess's skirt, I think," Ruth said.

They could not stop to investigate Agnes Kenway's discovery at this time. But when they went back to the inlet where the raft lay, Mr.

Howbridge climbed upon a rock with the gla.s.ses and examined the fluttering thing which Agnes had marked in the tree-top on the first island of the chain to the east.

There was no other sign of life or occupancy; but certain it was that some sort of pennant fluttered in the breeze. Tess and Dot could not, of course, have climbed so high to fasten a signal of distress, even had they thought of doing such a thing; but this mysterious pennant seemed a promise that the island was occupied.

If the little voyagers had come in the drifting motor-boat to this island and been stranded, they might have found somebody already there-somebody who would take care of them.

Ruth's mind was a little relieved by this thought. Perhaps Tess and Dot were not entirely alone. The thought of their having remained alone over night on the sea or on the lonely strand had made the older sister acutely miserable.

She and Agnes saw the two boys and Mr. Howbridge set sail upon the rude raft with less anxiety than they would have felt had they realized how treacherous both the sea and the weather was in this locality. They had forgotten, in this new trouble, the savageness and abruptness of the storm that had cast them all upon Palm Island.

The raft blundered out of the inlet, the boys guiding it with the oars.

But the great, square sail was already bent upon the mast and one yard.

As Mr. Howbridge had said, as soon as they were really adrift Luke and Neale had to "tend sheet." They had to keep the canvas trimmed all the time to hold the wind.

The raft began to move at a pace that momentarily increased. A little ruffle of white water showed before the blunt nose of the heavy craft.

The girls, standing with clasped hands on the rocky sh.o.r.e, watched the ponderously moving raft with great anxiety.

Now and then one of the boys turned to wave a confident hand to Ruth and Agnes. But both Luke and Neale, as well as Mr. Howbridge, felt more worriment for the safety of Ruth and Agnes than they cared to have the girls imagine.

They had been several days on Palm Island and had seen no vessel in the offing but their own and had marked no trace on the island of any former occupant. It might seem that there was really nothing on or about Palm Island to bring to it any person, either kindly or evilly disposed.

There was one thing, however, that Neale O'Neil had pointed out to Mr.

Howbridge. They had considered the possibility in secret of certain fellows of the baser sort coming to the place, but nothing of this had been said before the girls. If they had not thought of that themselves, it was not desirable to bring it to their attention and burden them with one more anxiety.

The three masculine members of the party of castaways had absolutely to go in search of Tess and Dot. The raft could not be made big enough to transport in safety Ruth and Agnes too. Would the raft return? This was a desperate situation.

The girls watched the raft move heavily away in the white glare of the sun, now almost overhead. The blot of shadow cast by the huge sail was very narrow. The glare of the view at last so blinded them that Ruth and Agnes retired to the covert of the cocoanut grove.

From this vantage point they could see the raft as it rose and fell upon the long, sweeping surges. Slowly, but steadily, it moved away from Palm Island toward that islet on which the flag had appeared and upon which Ruth hoped the children had taken refuge.

After the raft was so far away that the boys and girls could not shout back and forth to each other, it seemed that it moved very slowly indeed. Yet as the hours wore on the distance between the sh.o.r.e of Palm Island and the raft could be plainly marked.

The figures of the trio upon the raft were dwarfed at last to the size of manikins. The sail looked like a palm-leaf fan. The raft itself, rising and falling on the surge, became very small, and to the girls'

anxious eyes it seemed nearer to that distant island than to this one on which they were marooned.

"Come," said Ruth at last, sadly. "Let us go over to the spring and get some supper and go to bed. Watching them any longer will do no good. We cannot help. We can only trust that G.o.d will be good to us all. We'll hope for the best."

Even the usually voluble Agnes could say nothing cheerful in reply, and the two girls moved away from the point of their vigil.

CHAPTER XXI

A NIGHT ALARM

It was a very lonely evening for Ruth and Agnes Kenway. The boys had made the new camp near the spring as snug as possible. An outthrust rock partially sheltered them, and they had the smaller piece of sail-cloth to help keep them dry when they lay down. They had a good fire too.

But the wailing of the seabirds and the lap, lap, lapping of the little waves along the strand sounded very mournful in their ears. This tropic world was very empty and lonely!

Their minds not only reverted constantly to the question of the whereabouts of Tess and Dot, but the question of the safety of their boy friends and their guardian was now added to that first anxiety. Ruth and Agnes did not consider that they were in any immediate personal danger.

The thought that they might be left indefinitely on this lonely island they resolutely kept out of the forefront of their minds. But wreck and disaster might have overtaken both the other parties.

Agnes had climbed the hill just before the night fell and tried to spy the raft again. But she could not distinguish it. In fact, that nearest island on which they had seen the flag flying was almost blotted out.

"We cannot see anything until morning," Ruth told her. "I believe Mr.

Howbridge and the boys got to the island. If the children are there, then it is all right."

"All right?" repeated Agnes, with a sniff. "How can you say that?

Nothing will be all right again, I guess, until we get back to the Corner House. I wish we had never come South."

"We could not foresee all this trouble," rejoined her sister soothingly.

"We must not give up hope, Aggie."

"Humph!"

"If I only knew that Tess and Dot were safe I would feel better. Lots of people have worse troubles than this. Think of what the poor Pendletons are going through, for instance."

"Well, at least," declared Agnes, "the Pendletons have a roof over their heads."

"Ye-es," agreed Ruth thoughtfully. "And they are all together."