Despite the boys’ half-warning command, Gale and Phyllis were at their heels when they reached the boat.
Chapter II
THE PILOT
Cloudy Island, so named because of the fog which usually held the island in its grip and the group of clouds stationed above it like sentinels in the sky, was but a two minute ride from the main shore. It was a brown strip of land jutting up out of the blue Atlantic Ocean scarcely a mile from the coast of Maine. It was covered with a thick growth of trees and underbrush. About the only shelter of any kind was a fair sized log cabin which the young people had built as a combination picnic lodge and boat house.
Bruce’s motor boat covered the distance in record time, its owner at the wheel and his companions crouched low, straining their eyes for a sight of the airplane.
“It fell at the north end, didn’t it?” Phyllis murmured.
Bruce headed his boat for the sandy beach at the northern point. Bathing suits and sunburned arms and legs flashed in the sun as they left the boat and the boys brought it to a safe anchorage on the beach.
The girls led the dash from the sandy shore into the thick growth of trees, but there the boys soon overtook them.
“Janet will be wild because they were left behind,” Phyllis declared gaspingly as she ran along beside Gale.
Gale’s answer was lost in a cry as they burst suddenly upon the wreckage of the red monoplane. One wing was crumpled beneath the heavy cabin of the plane and the wheels were sticking grotesquely up into the air. The propeller had snapped in half and the shining red surface of the plane was scratched and blackened. The cockpit yawned black and empty.
“Where’s the pilot?” Peter demanded in amazement.