“Well, it isn’t doing us any good to stay here,” spoke Jerry. “It’s only making us more gloomy. I vote that we get out, and make a careful search for the radium. We won’t be bothered by Noddy and his crowd now, and there isn’t likely to be another flood, right away.”
“I agree with you,” said the professor. “We will be better off by doing some active work. I’ll take charge of what is left of the journal, and we’ll begin our search. What food is left we’ll pack away in the hut. Who knows but what some other daring adventurer, who seeks to navigate the river, may be wrecked here? It may save his life.”
The food was carefully put away, and it was likely to keep for some time, since there were no evidences that the waters had ever risen quite as high as the hut. Then our friends began their search.
It was kept up for several days, and, as thoroughly as they could, they covered every part of the island, beginning at the shore and working back toward the big mound in the center, with its tall pillar of sandstone rock.
“I guess we’ll have to make a record in our notebooks, the same as poor Mr. Bentwell did, ‘nothing doing,’” remarked Bob one day, after nearly a week of searching.
“Well, we’ve got all that hill to explore yet,” replied Ned. “And that’s the most likely place for the radium; isn’t it, Professor?”
“No, I can’t say that it is,” was the reply of the scientist. “I think, if we find it at all, that it will be on comparatively low ground. But it begins to look as if our hunt for the treasure was likely to result in failure.”
“And you haven’t got your two-tailed toad yet,” said Jerry.
“No, but I have hopes, boys,” and with that the professor, leaving the three chums to search for traces of radium, went off by himself to look for the specimen he so much wanted.
All that day the two searches were kept up, but without result. At night they assembled in the airship, which had been anchored on a level piece of high ground, near the upper end of the island, above the hut.