"I am in much trouble. Please, please come to help me. You promised."
CHAPTER XVI
THE ATTEMPTED RESCUE
"I will go back to the shanty boat with you now, Phil," volunteered Madge when Phyllis returned to her chums, carrying the pathetic scrap of paper. "We have the food you brought in the basket, which we can eat for luncheon. Lillian and Nellie can row over to the houseboat to tell Miss Jenny Ann that we mean to spend the day here. Then, perhaps, they will row back for us this afternoon."
"I don't think we ought to leave you and Phil alone on this island," remonstrated Eleanor, "especially when you won't have a boat. If anything should happen, there would be no chance of your getting away."
"I'll tell you what to do, Nellie," suggested Phil. "Suppose you and Lillian go home and then send our boat over to us immediately. The farmer boy will bring it for us. He can tow it and then row back in his own skiff. Ask him to anchor our boat in this same place. Madge and I will come home as soon as we find out whether there is anything we can do for poor Mollie."
Lillian and Eleanor were reluctant to leave their two friends. But there seemed nothing else to be done. The thought of their chaperon's anxiety at last persuaded them to go, and they departed after promising to send the boat over immediately they reached the "Merry Maid."
"What do you think we had better do, Phil?" asked Madge as the other two girls rowed out of sight.
Phil frowned and shook her head. "I haven't the faintest idea, Madge; I am afraid we are too late to do anything. That dreadful Mike has already taken his daughter away. I believe she wrote us several days ago, when she first heard what they meant to do with her. But I can't understand why her father wishes to put her in an asylum. She is much too useful to them. She does nearly all the washing and cooking on that miserable old shanty boat."