“And what do you think became of Ralph, Gif and Spouter?” remarked Randy.
No one cared to reply to this. All wished to hope for the best, yet down in their hearts they were satisfied that their school chums had gone to a watery grave. A sudden spell of melancholy fastened itself upon the four Rover boys. The mind of each traveled back to the loved ones at home, and they could well visualize the agony of mind which their parents and the girls must endure.
“More than likely mother is half crazy, and so are dad and Martha,” mused Jack to himself. “Oh, if only we had a radio sending station, or some carrier pigeons, or some means of communicating with them!”
“I suppose the folks at home will start some sort of a search for us,” said Fred, a little later. “But it will be a good deal like looking for a pin in a haystack.”
“We can only hope for the best, Fred,” said Randy. “Gee, I wish we could do something! I don’t want to stay on this forsaken island for any great length of time!”
“None of us wants to stay here,” declared Andy. “We haven’t any great stock of provisions, and what are we going to do when those are gone? Of course, we can catch fish, and maybe get some oysters, and perhaps bring down a few birds. But who wants to live on that sort of stuff very long?”
“There may be something we can find to eat in the jungle,” said Jack. “Bananas or cocoanuts or mangoes, or some other semi-tropical stuff like that. It isn’t likely there’s very much on a place that’s so rocky.”
During the afternoon the boys explored the island further, penetrating into the jungle for quite a distance. Here, however, they found the thickets so dense that progress was almost impossible.
“We’d have to cut our way along to get to the south side of the island,” declared Jack. “A fellow could never get through unless he found some sort of a trail.”