"Hardly," said Ned. "The island is pretty large, and I suppose it is a good many miles around it. Wouldn't it be better to take a direct course?"
"How?"
"Why, by going first to the rice swamp. There we shall almost certainly be able to find and follow Charley's trail."
"Of course," answered Jack. "What an idiot I was not to think of that first! The fact is, I believe last night's anxiety, particularly while you were away, was too much for me. I lost my head a little, I think, and haven't quite found it again."
"Listen! What's that?" exclaimed Ned, rising to look. As he did so, the bushes near the shore on the left of the camp parted, and——
"Bless me! it's Charley!" shouted both boys in a breath.
"Did you think I had run away with your trowsers?" asked the cause of all their anxieties, throwing down the two pairs of pantaloons stuffed full of wet rice.
"Gracious! Charley, where have you been?"
"We've had an awful night!" exclaimed Ned.
"Do I look as though I had had a particularly pleasant one?" responded Charley. "Do my dress and general appearance indicate that I dined last evening in the mansions of the great and slept upon a bed of down?"