He picked it up as he spoke. “Oh, I don’t think so,” Benjy began, “and yet, maybe it might.”
“There’s a brisk breeze blowing beyond the shelter of the wall of rocks,” Dick announced. “I vote that we do take the old fisherman’s boat and scud up and down the coast. The girls may have been stranded somewhere by the tide. I’ve read stories like that, and they were founded on fact.”
“So have I,” Benjy agreed. “It might be a good bet.”
And so it chanced that the three lads set sail in the old boat Nancy just as the girls, whom they were searching, were sitting down to partake of a fish dinner on an island which could be seen, but dimly from the mainland.
CHAPTER XXVI
A MESSAGE AFLOAT
The girls awakened, greatly refreshed from the nap they had taken, lying on the warm sunny sand, while Winston and Peggy had gone fishing to provide food for the next meal. It was two-thirty by Margaret’s faithful wrist watch when they arose and sauntered down to the shore. They saw the small raft returning and by the merry shouting of Peggy, they were sure that the catch had been a large one.
When the queer craft had been secured on the beach, Virginia said, “Winston, we girls were just thinking that we would like to go to the side of the island on which we landed, make a fire or in some way attempt to attract attention of the people on the mainland, who, we are sure, must by this time have started out in search of us.”
“Righto!” the lad cried, then leaping ahead of them, he disappeared in the hut, to soon return with a bottle, “I dug this up yesterday on the shore and I planned using it in a way that might bring help to my sister and me.”
“Oh, I know!” Betsy clapped her hands gleefully. “You planned writing a message, enclosing it in an air-tight bottle and setting it afloat. Wasn’t that it, Winston?”
“The very thing, and let’s do it now. I have a pencil,” the lad said, producing a well-worn stub.