“Thank Heaven,” gasped Lee, as the three boys threw themselves down and lay panting in the grateful shade of a big tree. “I’m all in. I couldn’t possibly have gone half a mile more.”
“I guess we’re about as bad,” said Fred. “I’m willing to admit that I was never so near the end of my rope. Any one would have thought you knew this island was here, Bobby, from the way you headed for it.”
“It was just a guess,” declared Bobby. “I figured that probably if we got further away from the river the ground might be less swampy and it would pay us to go in that direction even if we were getting farther from home.”
“We wouldn’t have got there very fast the way I was heading you anyway,” said Lee. “Poor mother will be terribly worried about us.”
“Yes,” agreed Bobby soberly, “that’s the trouble; when, we fellows get into trouble of any kind, our mothers suffer more over it than we do.”
In a short time they had recovered a good deal from their strenuous exertions, and now all three found themselves ravenously hungry. But to feel hungry and to satisfy that hunger were two very different things, as they soon discovered. They had read of people marooned on islands in the ocean, but in every such case there had seemed to be a convenient flock of goats or a handy beach strewn with shellfish. But after the boys had thoroughly ransacked their island, they found no such convenient supply. The place was only about a quarter of a mile across, hemmed in on every side with brown water and black mud.
Luckily, however, they had hung onto their fishing rods, and they had no difficulty in digging up a plentiful supply of worms in the rich earth. Fred was the first to get a bite, and he reeled in the fish as fast as he could, being much too eager to see the fish toasting over a fire to make any attempt to “play” him. It was not long before they had four small fish, and these they proceeded to clean and kill without wasting any time over it.
“Scubbity-yow!” exclaimed Fred, as he bit into the delicious morsel, “I never knew a fish could taste so good. These fellows are only samples. We’ll have to get busy and catch about a hundred more before I’ll feel satisfied.”
“If you’ll eat a hundred, I’ll catch them for you,” laughed Bobby.
“And I’ll clean them and cook them for you,” seconded Lee.