The island was a quarter of a mile across at its widest point. Even if the whole party entered on the search they would have difficulty in making so strong a human barrier across the isle that a fugitive in the covert could not escape through the line. 126
But Chet occasionally had a bright idea as well as his sister. He sent Short and Long—who could climb like a squirrel—to the top of a tall tree on the knoll. From that height he could see every opening in the wood, to the upper point of the island—which was nearly two miles long.
“Now we’ll all go and beat up the brush and see if we can start anything bigger than a rabbit,” Chet declared. “Spread out and try to push through the woods as straight as possible.”
“We girls, too?” cried Nellie.
“Be a sport, Nell, and come along,” urged Jess Morse. “We’ll be in sight and call of each other all the time.”
Which was true enough, as they soon discovered. Lil said it was her turn to help do the camp work. And of course neither Mrs. Morse nor Liz could go.
“Don’t you think,” Purt asked, seriously, “that one of us ought to remain here and defend—er—the camp?”
“Sure,” said Chet, quickly. “We’ll leave Art, if you say so. He rather admires Lil, too, Purt.”
This made the dude keep still; but he did dislike this “manhunt” in the thick brush of Acorn Island.
After they had gone half a mile or so, and found nothing—not even a trace of anybody else 127 having camped on the island—they all took the situation more cheerfully. They believed whoever had stolen the girls’ food had already departed.