“I tell you what we ought to do,” remarked Andy, as the train neared their destination.
“What’s that? Not play any more jokes I hope.” And Frank smiled as he looked at his brother.
“No, I mean about this chase. We ought to arrange to stay on the island for several days—sort of camp there. It’s so big and so irregular in shape, and with so many caves, that we can’t go all over it in one day. And there’s no telling where that man may be hiding.”
“That’s so. Then you think we’d better stock up with grub, and make it a sort of picnic?”
“I do. We can telephone word home of what we’re going to do, so they won’t worry. It will be fun, even if we don’t find any clues of the mysterious man.”
“I’m with you. We can buy our grub in Mardene and stock our boat. Then for ‘a life on the ocean wave, a home on the bounding deep,’” quoted Frank, in a sing-song voice.
The Gull was tied up in a small slip where they had left her, and the provisions were soon put aboard. Then the two brothers went over every rope and sail, to make sure they would serve in the strain of a storm.
“Well, guess we might as well pull out,” remarked Frank, as he looked up at the “tattletale,” or piece of triangular bunting flying from the mast to tell the direction of the wind. “We’ve got a good breeze now. I hope it holds.”
“Wait just a minute,” begged Andy. “I want to take a look at that motor boat,” and he motioned to a large one that was tied near the sailboat. “I wish we had one like that. It’s a beaut!”
No one was near the craft and soon Andy was in it, inspecting her critically. Frank saw him handling some of the wires that ran to spark plugs in the four cylinder heads.