They resumed work on the raft immediately after a hasty breakfast. In order that their prisoner might be taken to the mainland, or out as far as they might go before a ship picked them up, they made a sort of platform, on which he could sit. They also improvised a mast on which they stretched a piece of canvas they found in the wrecked motor boat. By noon their rude vessel was completed.
“Now for the launching,” exclaimed Frank. “It’s nearly high tide, and if we can work it a little farther down the beach the tide will do the heaviest work for us. Then we’ll go aboard.”
“I’m not going on that thing!” snarled their prisoner.
“Yes, you are, if we have to carry you,” declared Frank.
“But I may be drowned. You ought to take off these ropes if you’re going to do such a foolhardy thing as to sail on that raft.”
“Not much!” exclaimed Frank determinedly. “We’ve had enough of your tricks. You’ll go on that raft, and you’ll stay tied up.”
“But if I give you my promise?” whined the man, who seemed to have lost much of his bravado.
“Nixy on your promises,” exclaimed Andy. “Come on, Frank, let’s work the raft down the shore a bit.”
It was not without much labor that the boys succeeded in getting the heavy mass of driftwood down where the tide would float it for them. The man watched them with a scowling face, occasionally muttering to himself.
“Better take something to eat along with us; hadn’t we?” asked Andy, when they were waiting for the rising tide.