Chapter XVII: Looking for Adventure

Imagine becoming bored on a desert island in the tropics! But that is exactly what happened in the case of Dot Kenway. Nor was Tess in much finer fettle on the fourth morning of their sojourn on Palm Island.

“I wish we had Tom Jonah here. Or even Billy Bumps,” said Tess to her smaller sister. “There isn’t really much to play with on this place but turtles. And they only lie on their backs and wave their paws at you.”

“It is too bad we didn’t bring that rabbit along that Sammy Pinkney gave us for Christmas,” said Dot, quite as ruefully.

“That old Belgian hare!”

“We-ell, the Belgians are all right, I guess. They live over there in Europe.”

“I guess that rabbit never came from Bel-Belgia, or whatever that place is called,” said Tess.

“And we don’t even know _his_ name,” went on Dot. “We came away so soon after Christmas, and it snowed in between, that I didn’t see that rabbit at all. But Uncle Rufus said it had a good appetite.”

“I’m hungry myself,” announced Tess, rather despondently. “If I tell Ruth she’ll only give me some funny fruit and tell me to eat it and be thankful.”

“M-mm. I know,” rejoined Dot, appreciating this. “But how can you be thankful for something you don’t want? Now, if I had a piece of bread and butter——”

“Oh! And with honey on it!”

“No. Apricot jam. I like that better.”

“Of all the stingy children!” exclaimed Tess, in a strangely quarrelsome mood for her. “When I want honey!”

“Can’t you have honey if you want to? And me have apricot jam? It’s only in our minds, anyway,” mourned Dot, hugging up the Alice-doll. “Say, Tess, let’s do something.”

“What is there to do in this place?” repeated her sister despondently.

“Mr. Howbridge and Luke and Neale have gone hunting for springs again. Ruth told them she had just got to have fresh water. I don’t know what for,” Dot remarked. “They have almost got the engine fixed. I heard Neale say so. Let us go see it.”

This suggestion for action was better than no action at all. Tess agreed, and, unseen by the older girls, the two little ones made their way down to the rocky cove where the Isobel lay. She was not even at anchor now, for the anchor had been raised and the motor-boat drawn very close in to the rocks, as it was high tide. The log still lay like a gangplank from the rock to the forward part of the Isobel.

The boys and Mr. Howbridge had gone away and left the motor-boat in rather a precarious situation, but quite without realizing it. The tide was rising and that served to lift the log and make it rather unsafe for Tess and Dot to pass over; and when the little girls had done so, splash! The log fell into the water between the boat and the shore.

“O-oo! Now see what we’ve done,” gasped Dot.

“Never mind. Neale will find another. And we can stay here till he comes back,” Tess declared.

She did not notice, however, that the accident had brought a sudden strain upon the single line that bound the boat to the shore. This mooring was not very skillfully made, for neither Neale nor Luke were practical sailors, and so were not professional rope-knotters.

At any rate, with the falling of the log the hull of the _Isobel_ strained at the small hawser, and that rope loosened, almost imperceptibly at first, from the rock around which it had been looped.

Tess and Dot did not see this. They got down into the cockpit, and from that place they could not see the rocks without standing up, nor could they be seen themselves from the shore.

The motor-boat rose and fell rather pleasantly upon the surface of the inlet. The tide had now risen to its highest point, and as it turned and began to recede, naturally everything afloat in the little cove began to drift out to sea. The log that had served as a gangplank between the _Isobel_ and the shore went first, but soon the motor-boat likewise got into the tide and blundered out through the mouth of the narrow estuary.

Strange as it may seem, the two smallest Corner House girls did not discover what had happened until the bobbing motor-boat was quite a long way from the island. It was then the freshening wind, that made the boat “joggle,” which first annoyed Dot Kenway.

“I wish this boat would stay still, Tess,” she complained. “Let’s go back to the land. I feel all joggled up inside me.”

Tess jumped up. “Why-ee!” she gasped. “Where—where is Palm Island?”

“Where is what?” her sister demanded, likewise scrambling to her feet.

They were both facing seaward. There were islands in that direction, but smaller ones, and, it seemed to Tess and Dot, a vast distance away! Tess whirled around. Palm Island was behind them. The motor-boat was blundering away from their refuge and their sisters and their friends!

If Dot and Tess had been looking for adventure, they certainly had found it this time.

“Is that Plam Island?” Dot demanded.

“Of course it is.”

“But—but what’s it doing ‘way over there?” quavered Dot. “I thought we were tied to it.”

“We came untied I guess,” said Tess, despondently, seeing the rope dragging over the boat’s rail. “Oh, dear me!”

“I told you I didn’t like this place, Tess Kenway!” stormed Dot. “And now see what’s happened to us. Ruthie will be awful mad.”

But Tess knew that Ruth would experience a different emotion from anger. As long as the boat remained on even keel Tess did not see how much harm could come to them. But suppose they bumped into something?

“Let’s shout!” she urged, climbing upon one of the seats. “Maybe they will hear us.”

But the wind was blowing from the direction of Palm Island, and that and the tide carried the _Isobel_ away from their friends, and carried the sound of their shrill voices away, too.

It was an hour later before anybody on Palm Island imagined that anything out of the way had befallen Tess and Dot Kenway.

There was good reason for the fact that Tess and Dot were not soon missed. The older sisters had left the little ones playing near the tent when they strolled away themselves to see if any success was attending the efforts of the boys and Mr. Howbridge in their search for water.

The heat of the day was over. The breeze had sprung up and laved their faces delightfully as the girls strolled toward the hill on which the big palm tree grew.

The two older sisters found that the boys and their guardian had gone around the foot of the hill which occupied the middle of Palm Island, but they started to mount the slope of the smooth eminence.

“I wish we could see some boat and attract its attention,” sighed Ruth, as they went on. “Then it wouldn’t matter about the water supply or about repairing the engine of the Isobel.”

“I guess we have been castaways long enough,” agreed Agnes. “It would be awful if we had to stay here much longer. Think of our nice dresses there at the hotel all going to waste.”

Ruth smiled indulgently. “We can wear them when we go back North.”

“Oh, they’ll be almost old by that time,” declared the younger girl sadly. “And I did so want to wear ’em where Nalbro Hastings and those other girls could see that we weren’t frumps, even if we did come from Milton.”

“I never!” exclaimed Ruth, laughing. “You are the strangest girl, Aggie.”

“Ought not to be strange to you, Ruthie. You’ve known me all my life,” remarked the flyaway sister, smiling. “And I did want to sport my new frocks!”

“So you shall,” said Ruth, comfortingly. “I don’t think we shall have to remain on Palm Island much longer. Luke tells me he is sure that the engine will be all right soon. He knows a good deal about such things.”

“Oh, Ruth!” exclaimed Agnes suddenly, “there’s a boat coming to rescue us now!”

They were about half way up the slope of the hill. Agnes had turned to look back, and right over the lower trees and the rocky end of the island a craft of some kind was visible. Ruth, quite as excited as her sister, turned sharply to look in the direction Agnes pointed.

“From that way?” she murmured. “St. Sergius isn’t over there, Aggie.”

“I don’t care. You can see the boat, can’t you?” cried Agnes eagerly. “Hurrah! I want to tell Neale. I saw the boat first.”

“Wait!” commanded Ruth, seizing the excited girl’s arm. “That boat is not coming this way, I am afraid.”

“It’s never got past the island without our seeing it!” wailed Agnes. “Never!”

“I—don’t—know——”

“I wish we had put up a flag—a signal of some kind,” Agnes continued to complain. “Oh, Ruthie! If they have gone right by without seeing us! I would have sacrificed my sports skirt for a flag and worn—worn a gunny sack, if necessary! This is too mean.”

“Wait, Aggie!” exclaimed Ruth, still staring at the boat Agnes had first spied. “There—there is something the matter with that boat. What propels it?”

“It is a motor-boat like ours, of course,” rejoined Agnes quickly.

“It is not moving fast enough for that. And there is no sail. And I cannot see anything moving on that boat.”

“For goodness’ sake, Ruthie! Is it a boat sailing all by itself?” Agnes demanded.

“Exactly. That is what it is. The boat has broken away——”

“Well, now!” gasped Agnes. “Isn’t that strange? And it’s a motor-boat like the _Isobel_.”

“Oh, Aggie!” cried Ruth, turning to her with a frightened face now. “Aggie! It is our boat! It’s broken away, somehow. We are now really cast away on this island. What will become of us?”

Agnes Kenway felt immense dismay at the possibility of the truth of her sister’s statement. But Ruth was so utterly despairing that the younger girl felt she must comfort her.

“If it’s the _Isobel_, we’re lucky not to be in her,” she said. “I guess we would have to wait for some other boat to come after us, anyway; so we are no worse off than we were before.”

“How can you say that?” Ruth demanded. “Luke was sure he had almost got at the cause of the trouble with the mechanism.”

“Well, let’s not cry about it,” begged Agnes. “Oh, don’t, Ruth! If Tess and Dot see you in tears——”

Ruth dried her eyes suddenly. “I wonder where the children are?” she murmured. “I wonder if they have seen the boat drifting away?”

“And I don’t believe Neale O’Neil knows about it. I am going to run and tell him,” said Agnes, who always made Neale a partner in everything that happened to her.

She darted off excitedly. Ruth started back toward their camp. As she pushed through the shrubs, hastening her steps, she wondered where Tess and Dot were. By and by she began to call them by name; but she received no reply save the raucous cries of the water-fowl and the chattering of parakeets.

Ruth Kenway began to be alarmed in earnest.