Mike Murphy cut a strange figure, dancing, shouting, swinging his arms and waving his cap, but sad to say not a solitary person seemed to see him, or else he not did think it worth while to give further attention to the marooned youth.
"It looks loike it will be a failure, as Tim Ryan said whin he tried to throw the prize bull over a stone wall."
Accordingly, Mike returned to the upper end of the islet to learn whether any hope lay in that direction. His growing fear was that he was in danger of starving to death.
"Anither night will doot," he said, despairing for the moment—"PHWAT!"
The first look northward showed him the Deerfoot, speeding past barely a fourth of a mile distant. Had he not spent so much time at the other end of his refuge he would have observed her long before.
He stood for a spell unable to believe the evidence of his senses. Then, when the glorious truth burst upon him, he uttered the words that have already been recorded.
CHAPTER XXX
A New England Home Coming
The amazement of Alvin Landon and Chester Haynes was as overwhelming as that of Mike Murphy. For a brief while they stared across the water, without the Captain shifting the wheel. It is said that a person's voice is the surest means of disclosing his identity, but Mike's tones did not sound natural because of their hoarseness. There was no mistaking that sturdy figure, however, that stood on the top of one of the rocks, acting like a lunatic, as indeed he was for the moment.