“Benjy is right,” Dick agreed. “There, now we’re making straight for it.”
“Hold the boat steady,” Benjy called. “I’ll lean way over and try to grab it when it’s near enough.”
But holding the boat steady with the sails flapping in an ever-increasing wind proved to be an impossible feat.
“Pull on the sheet! Quick!” was Jack’s sharp command. “We’re bearing right down on it. Gee whiz! We hit it! Now, like as not, it’s broken.”
But the bottle, evidently unharmed, slid around the boat and bobbed up on the other side. Making a lunge which nearly resulted in his falling overboard, Benjy secured the prize, and holding it up, he could plainly see the birch bark inside which he was convinced held some message.
“There’s only one way to it,” Dick told him, “that’s to break the bottle.”
This was easily done and the piece of birch bark fell out.
The three boys crowded round to try to decipher the blurred pencil marks.
“It’s unbelievable!” Benjy stood up and shading his eyes, gazed out toward the bank of mist which nearly always hung like a curtain between the mainland and the island.
Then, with a whoop of joy, he shouted, “Look yonder! A fishing launch is coming in. Let’s hire one of the men to sail The Nancy back to its dock and the other to take us over to the island.”