"Gee," grumbled Phil, "and here I can't seem to stay awake. Just as well have let me slumber on in peace."
"Well, don't slumber while I'm gone, sleepyhead."
Jerry walked across the open ground and after an undecided halt, broke through the bushes, heavy now with dew, and made for the shore. He stood for a long time on the bank, looking across to where the Scout camp lay quiet in the darkness, and then turned and was about to go back to Phil. But he paused; a steady creaking sound had broken the night. It was drawing slowly nearer. It was a rowboat.
"Great conspirators, they are!" sniffed Jerry. "They might at least grease their oars." He heard the mumble of low voices, the sush of a boat keel on the sand. Reaching down, he caught up a big handful of pebbles; with a hard overhand swing he let them fly.
He heard a muttered "Ouch!" and then, after a moment's silence, once more the creak-crook of oars. "Batter out" chuckled Jerry to himself as he scurried back to the hangar.
After that he slept.
The boys were all excitement when he told his story next morning, but that was nothing to compare with the exclamation that arose that same evening when they returned to camp to find that Dave, who had been left in charge, had disappeared, and that the place had been rifled and then torn all to pieces. Poor Dave was found not far off, tied to a tree. His story was somewhat lacking in detail. He had sat dozing over a book on aeronautics, when suddenly an earthquake came up and hit him over the head. That was all he knew till he woke up tied securely to a tree.
"That settles it," declared Phil. "We ought to have done it in the first place, but the boss didn't think it was worth while."
"What's that?" demanded Jerry, a bit sharply.
"Well, what's the idea of our coming over here every night to sleep, when there's oodles of room there on Lost Island, where we're needed? Huh?"