"Yes, I know," interrupted Charley, "I ought to take a bag, or a sheet, or, still better, the spring wagon; but seeing that we haven't any wagon, or bag, or sheet, or any thing else to carry rice in, except trowsers, I'm going to use trowsers; and remembering the tattered condition of Jack's skin after his trowserless stroll through the briars, I'm not going to use my own trowsers for a bag. So off with your pantaloons, young men, and be quick about it, for I'm going to make two trips to-day and bring in rice for the whole season."

Laughing, the boys obeyed, and Charley left them at work in their shirts and drawers. He got back to camp at dinner-time, fully loaded. After dinner he made his second trip, saying that he would return about sunset.

Sunset came at its appointed time, but Charley was not so punctual. It grew dark, and still Charley did not appear. Ned and Jack began to grow uneasy. They went out into the woods in rear of their camp and called at the top of their voices, but received no answer.

"I'll tell you what, Ned," said Jack; "we must build a beacon fire.

Charley has stayed late to fill his trowser-bags, and has lost his way trying to get back."

It was no sooner said than done. Pitch pine was piled on the fire, and a blaze made that might have been seen for many miles. The boys shouted themselves hoa.r.s.e too, but got no answer.

After an hour of waiting, Ned said:

"Jack, I'm going over to the rice patch to look for Charley. Something serious must have happened. You stay here and keep up a big fire. If I need you I'll call at the top of my voice, and you will hear me I think."

"But, Ned, it's an awful undertaking to go from here to the rice field on such a night. It's as black as pitch, and you are barefooted and almost naked; let me go."

"I know all that," said Ned, "but it would be cowardly to abandon Charley, and for my life I can't see that you are any better equipped for the journey than I am. You're barefooted too, and as nearly naked as I am."

"Yes, I suppose so," answered Jack, "but I don't mind for myself."

"You stay here, you great big-hearted, generous fellow!" was all that Ned said in reply, as he started away.

Both Jack and Ned knew that the journey thus undertaken would be attended by no little danger as well as sore discomfort and suffering.

The deadly moccasin and rattlesnake lurk in the gra.s.s and weeds of that coast country, and the unshod boy was in peril of their fangs at every step. He was too brave a boy, however, to shrink from danger when a real duty was to be done, and so he set forth manfully. Taking a stick he struck the ground frequently, as a precaution against the danger of stepping upon any snake that might be in his path, and more than once he heard the venomous creatures hiss angrily before scurrying away.

He pressed forward too eagerly to pay due attention to briars and brushwood, and so before he reached the rice swamp his scanty clothing was nearly torn from his body and his skin was badly lacerated. His coat protected his shoulders and arms, of course, but his legs, hands, and face suffered not a little.

Meantime Jack kept up the beacon fire, suffering scarcely less with anxiety and impatience than Ned suffered from physical hurts. Poor Jack had the hard task of waiting in terror and uncertainty. He imagined all manner of evils that might have happened to Charley; then he became anxious about Ned. He shuddered to think of the dangers through which his companion must be pa.s.sing. The necessity of inactivity was intolerable; Jack could not sit or stand still. He felt that he should go mad if he did not keep in motion. He paced up and down by the fire, as a caged tiger does. Finally, morbid fancies took possession of him.

He imagined that he heard Ned groan in the bushes on his left. Then he seemed to hear a cry of agony from Charley in the woods on his right.

Investigation revealed nothing, and Jack returned to his waiting in an agony of suspense.

It was after midnight when Ned returned, torn, bleeding, worn out with exertion, and very lame from a wound in his foot. He had trodden upon some sharp thing, a thorn or sharp spike of wood, which had thrust itself deep into the flesh of his heel, and the wound was now badly inflamed.

"Thank heaven, you are safe at any rate!" exclaimed Jack fervently. "Did you find out any thing about poor Charley?"

"Nothing," answered Ned, returning Jack's warm hand-clasp. "I went to the rice field and found the place where he had been threshing, but no other trace of him. He must have finished threshing, however, and started homeward, as he left no threshed rice there. I could not find a trail in the dark, of course, and I can't imagine what has become of Charley. I called him repeatedly, and went all around the marsh, but it was of no use. Besides, if he were anywhere in that region he would know the way home, for I could see not only the light from this fire but the blaze itself."

"Well, you stay here now and let me go," said Jack, preparing to set out.

"What's the use?" asked Ned. "I tell you I have done all that can be done until daylight. If you go you'll only run the risk of laming yourself, and then there'll be n.o.body fit to take up the search when morning comes to make it hopeful."

This was so obviously a sensible view of the situation, that Jack was forced, though reluctantly, to remain where he was.

Hour after hour the two boys waited and watched, keeping up the beacon fire, and occasionally investigating sounds which they heard or thought that they heard in the woods and thickets around them. Naturally they talked very little. There was nothing to talk of except Charley's disappearance, and there was little to be said about that.

It began to rain, slowly at first, and in torrents toward morning, but neither boy thought of going into the hut for shelter. Indeed, neither boy seemed conscious of the fact that it was raining at all. They were aware only of the horrible suspense in which they were pa.s.sing the hours of a night which seemed almost endless.

CHAPTER XIV.

IN THE GRAY OF THE MORNING.

As the first flush of dawn appeared Ned said: "Jack, we mustn't lose our heads. You know what you said after the wreck. You and I have to look after Charley to-day, and we may have need of all our wits and all our strength; so, for his sake, if not for our own, we must force a full breakfast down our throats. It will steady as well as strengthen us. I don't want any thing to eat, and I suppose you don't, but we must eat for all that. We haven't had a mouthful since noon yesterday, and we'll be fit for no exertion if we go on in this way."

"That is true," answered Jack; "we must eat breakfast."

"Very well; then let's be about it, so that we may have it over by the time that it is fairly light, and then we'll lose no time in setting out."

"You can't leave camp," said Jack; "your foot is awfully swollen and your leg too."

"Yes, I know," answered Ned, "but I am going anyhow. We must find Charley, and maybe both of us will be needed when we do."

While this discussion was going on the breakfast preparations were advancing, and it was not long before the two disconsolate fellows began the difficult task of forcing food down their unwilling throats.

"What is our best plan of operations, Jack?" asked Ned.

"I scarcely know. Perhaps we'd best go round the island, one one way and the other the other, shouting and looking. Then, if either finds Charley and needs a.s.sistance the other will of course be there soon afterward."

"Hardly," said Ned. "The island is pretty large, and I suppose it is a good many miles around it. Wouldn't it be better to take a direct course?"

"How?"

"Why, by going first to the rice swamp. There we shall almost certainly be able to find and follow Charley's trail."

"Of course," answered Jack. "What an idiot I was not to think of that first! The fact is, I believe last night's anxiety, particularly while you were away, was too much for me. I lost my head a little, I think, and haven't quite found it again."

"Listen! What's that?" exclaimed Ned, rising to look. As he did so, the bushes near the sh.o.r.e on the left of the camp parted, and----

"Bless me! it's Charley!" shouted both boys in a breath.

"Did you think I had run away with your trowsers?" asked the cause of all their anxieties, throwing down the two pairs of pantaloons stuffed full of wet rice.

"Gracious! Charley, where have you been?"

"We've had an awful night!" exclaimed Ned.

"Do I look as though I had had a particularly pleasant one?" responded Charley. "Do my dress and general appearance indicate that I dined last evening in the mansions of the great and slept upon a bed of down?"

"Well, no," said Ned, unable as yet to share Charley's cheerfulness of mood; "but really, Charley, we have suffered a good deal. You ought to have come back to camp."

"Now, look here, fellows," said Charley, more seriously than he had yet spoken, "if you think I haven't known by instinct how much you would suffer because of my unexplained absence, you do me great injustice. My situation through the night has been none of the pleasantest, but the worst part of it has been what I have suffered thinking of your anxiety.

Pray, don't imagine that I'm totally dest.i.tute of feeling."

There was a hurt tone in Charley's voice as he said this, to which Ned responded at once.

"Forgive me, Charley," he said, holding out his hand, which the other took. "I did not mean to reproach you wrongfully. I know your warm heart and generous soul."