He was a pale, gawky fellow, more than six feet tall, who walked with a pronounced stoop, as though accustomed to ceilings that were too low for him.
Each man seemed to have certain duties to perform, which were his own particular business. There must be some tasks that they shared in common, for occasionally Harry saw two together; but usually they were alone.
Crawford handled the cooking, and the men helped themselves to the food. Professor Whitburn seemed to eat very little, and Crawford attended to his meager wants.
Harry’s work proved to be the accumulation of knowledge. Professor Whitburn had supplied him with numerous textbooks on engineering, and had marked certain passages which he proposed that Harry should read.
The motor boat was seldom used. Sometimes Crawford operated it; sometimes Stokes. One or the other went to get supplies or mail. The former appeared to be Crawford’s job; the latter was the duty of Stokes.
Wandering about the island, between his studies, Harry found it to be of small acreage, and thickly wooded; yet precisely the sort of island one might expect to find in a Connecticut lake.
There was no chance to obtain the radio equipment that he had in his car. Harry decided to wait, and save the radio as a later advantage, if he should happen to need it.
In the daytime, Death Island was quiet and pleasant; but, strangely enough, it was avoided by the loud-crying birds that seemed to be plentiful on the main land. Outside of the men who had accepted this isle as their residence, Professor Whitburn’s cat seemed to be the only living thing on Death Island.
This fact was hardly significant; yet it fitted in with the ominous name of the place.
Harry had noticed that the house was equipped with a towerlike third floor. There was a bolted door on the second story that appeared to be an entrance to the tower.