“You don’t think it’ll go near our cabin, do you?” asked Carl suddenly.
“Not unless the wind shifts,” answered Bob. “But I think we ought to get back there as soon as we can. No telling what may happen.”
“I suppose we can leave the bees here all right till the fire’s out,” said Carl, looking critically around him. “But how are we going to get ashore ourselves?”
They did not relish the idea of trying to paddle the raft over the half mile of water to land, and besides they preferred to leave it where it was for use when they should remove the bees from the island. Both of them could swim, but neither felt equal to a swim of that distance, especially as they were nearly exhausted already. So for a time they sat still on the island, closely surrounded by murmuring masses of their bees, till it was nearly noon, and they began to grow desperately hungry.
“It seems to me a thousand years since I had breakfast,” said Carl. “Nothing for it but to swim, I guess.”
They looked and dreaded, but there was really no easier way. Stripping off their already soaked clothes, they made them into two bundles, which they tied at their necks, and each took a loose plank from the raft to serve as a float. With this support there was no danger of sinking, though it made their progress somewhat slow, and in half an hour they stepped ashore on the mainland.
The shore was still hot here where the fire had passed, and they had to go up the lake for half a mile before they found a way around the burned area. Here the fire seemed to have started, spreading southward, and they wondered again what had been its origin.
This necessary detour made it a long tramp home, and they were very tired, blackened, and hungry when they came in sight of the cabin, and perceived Alice scouting about on the trail in front, evidently on the lookout for them.
“Oh, boys!” she exclaimed, hastening toward them. “Are you all right? I’ve been almost out of my mind with fright. I could see the smoke, and I thought—I didn’t know what might happen. I knew you’d try to save the bees. Are they all burned up?”
“Not a bit of it,” said Carl. “We rafted them off into the lake.”