“Yes,” he answered, “I was just thinking it was lucky Hadley fixed things up so well before he left. As it is, it is the safest house in town.”
“Dear me!” cried the lady suddenly, discovering a stream of water coming down in a corner hitherto considered safe and dry, “I only wish ours was. Half the things I have will be utterly ruined if this keeps up.”
“And it is going to keep up all right,” was the consoling reply of her husband.
In the gray morning, when the storm abated and men in waterproofs began to venture out and take stock of the damage done and compare notes, it was discovered that the launch had not come back; that while frailer shelters had gone crashing down, compelling their inmates to flee through the storm to other shelters, the “safest house in town” had stood untenanted and alone.
When Mr. and Mrs. Hadley, hurried back from Guaymas by the awful news, reached the Port, every foot of the Rosalie Group had been searched over. On one had been found a child’s handkerchief beaten into the sand. They gave it to Mrs. Hadley, and she looked at it a moment silently. Just a ragged, soiled little thing it was, with a faint trace of what had once been a picture printed in bright colors.
“It’s Esther’s,” said the mother, and she put it away, the most sacred of her treasures. As a matter of fact, it was not Esther’s at all,—Esther had hers with her at that moment,—but the grimy little rag was taken for evidence indisputable that the launch party had been on that particular island.
Over and over the boats went out and searched. All of the Rosalies, all of the esteros and marshy mud flats for many miles were gone carefully over, not, indeed, with any hope now of discovering the lost ones, but for some trace, some sign, something washed from the wreck.
When Mr. Cunningham returned, he declared himself completely mystified. He knew the launch was in perfect condition when it went out that morning, for he had examined it himself; and he knew Pearson was in every way competent to run it. There had been plenty of warning of the oncoming of the storm, plenty of time to have returned in safety.
But the launch did not return; it had gone out into the blue, and the blue had swallowed it entirely. The waves lapped, lapped on the rocks and little beaches, the seabirds swooped and called to one another, and in time even the gray-haired father gave up the search, and he and his quiet, sweet-faced wife packed up all their belongings and left the scene of their terrible sorrow.