“Oh! What will become of papa?” cried Nellie. “His houseboat may be wrecked!”
“Maybe the chief knows something of the Wanderer,” suggested Olivia to Mr. Snodgrass. “Ask him, please.”
To the surprise of all the Indian chief said he had seen the houseboat on Lake Okeechobee on his way to Butterfly Lake. He described the location and this showed it had moved away from the blocked passage. Ottiby had not tried to enter Butterfly Lake through that waterway and so, was not aware that it was choked up.
“He has seen father’s boat!” exclaimed Nellie. “Was he all right?”
“Him walk back and forth on deck quick,” replied the Indian with a smile.
Never had the boys seen such a disturbance of the elements. The rain came down in sheets and the tent, made of double canvas as it was, leaked like a sieve. There was such power to the wind that, had the tent not been protected by the surrounding forest, it would have been blown over.
The girls were very much frightened, and cowered down in a corner under such coverings as they could secure to keep the rain from leaking in on them. Bob was protected with his chums’ raincoats and, throughout the hurricane, kept murmuring in his delirium about pleasant sunshiny days.
At last the storm reached its height. The tent seemed fairly to lift loose from the guy ropes, but they were strong and well fastened, and the fury of the wind was cheated. The thunder appeared to gather all its powers for a tremendous clap, following such a stroke of lightning that it seemed as if the whole heavens were a mass of flame. Then with an increase in the fall of rain, which lasted for ten minutes and completed the drenching of everyone in the tent, the tropical outburst was over.
Lanterns which had blown out were relighted and the flaps of the canvas house opened. Ned and Jerry hurried out to wring some of the water from their clothes, while the professor sent them to the motor boat, which had been covered with a heavy tarpaulin, for some dry clothes for Bob. The lightning still flickered behind a mass of clouds in the east and brought out in sharp outline the tops of the trees on the distant mainland. Jerry looked at them for a moment. Then he called out:
“Our island’s floating away faster than before!”