“If it’s the Isobel, we’re lucky not to be in her,” she said. “I guess we would have to wait for some other boat to come after us, anyway; so we are no worse off than we were before.”
“How can you say that?” Ruth demanded. “Luke was sure he had almost got at the cause of the trouble with the mechanism.”
“Well, let’s not cry about it,” begged Agnes. “Oh, don’t, Ruth! If Tess and Dot see you in tears——”
Ruth dried her eyes suddenly. “I wonder where the children are?” she murmured. “I wonder if they have seen the boat drifting away?”
“And I don’t believe Neale O’Neil knows about it. I am going to run and tell him,” said Agnes, who always made Neale a partner in everything that happened to her.
She darted off excitedly. Ruth started back toward their camp. As she pushed through the shrubs, hastening her steps, she wondered where Tess and Dot were. By and by she began to call them by name; but she received no reply save the raucous cries of the water-fowl and the chattering of parakeets.
Ruth Kenway began to be alarmed in earnest.
CHAPTER XVIII—A NIGHT OF DESPAIR
Agnes Kenway was as light-footed as a deer. She ran as hard as she could around the slope of the hill on which the big palm grew, and thence down into the green wood. She shouted as she ran and soon heard Neale O’Neil reply.
“What’s broken loose, Aggie?” demanded the boy, as soon as she came into view of the waterhunting party.