"Oh, Dot!" she wailed, "I can't tell you how sorry I am—about bringing you in on this! I had no right to let you come. Your mother will never forgive me. It was different with Lou. When she set out on those wild adventures with me, her parents knew what to expect."
"Cheer up, we're not dead yet," was the reassuring reply. "Things aren't so black. Our enemy is safely out of the country, I take it, and Captain Magee is sure to look us up soon, when he doesn't hear from us. Besides, a friendly boat may come along at any minute."
"Dot, you're one girl in a thousand!" cried Linda, giving her chum a hug. "You're just an old peach, not to be complaining. And for my own sake, I'm so thankful you're with me! Just imagine how I'd feel all alone!"
"Well, let's enjoy ourselves while the food lasts. Let's carry it inshore farther, and find a camping place. You have matches in your pocket?"
"Always!" replied Linda, thinking of her experience in Canada, when she had lost her matches with her plane. "I keep my pockets as full as a man's now, so if I am separated from my plane, I'm not helpless."
"Wise girl! You're learning, Linda. In a year or two you can do exploring, like Byrd—if there are any places left to explore."
"I guess Aunt Emily will make me sit home with folded hands after this," remarked Linda, soberly. "If we aren't rescued soon, it will be bound to get into the newspapers."
She stooped over and opened her tool-box, in which she carried all sorts of things besides actual tools. A flash-light, a knife, wire and string, even nails and nuts. And down in the corner she found several cans of food, which she thought the bandits had taken out when they emptied the plane of its gas that first day in the swamp.
"This is going to be a big help," she said. "We might even build a boat——"
"Out of underbrush?" asked Dot, sarcastically. "Why, there isn't a decent tree on the whole island."