“If we had known all this before we started––” began Hank, the next time the three swimmers were driven to cling, briefly, to their movable buoy.
“We’d have started just the same,” retorted Tom, as stiffly as his chattering teeth would let him speak.
“Humph!” muttered Hank, unbelievingly. “It’s a fool’s dream, this kind of a swim.”
“It’s less work to go ahead than to turn back, now,” broke in Joe, his teeth accompanying his words with the clatter of castanets.
“No; the wind and tide would be with us going back,” objected Butts. “We could almost drift back.”
“And die of chills on the way,” contended Tom, doggedly. “No, sir! We’ve got to go ahead. I’m swimming to the tune of thoughts of the galley fire aboard the ‘Restless’!”
“Br-r-r!” shook Hank, as the three cast loose from the log once more and struck out, panting, yet too cold to stay idle any longer.
It was tantalizing enough. The longer they swam, the more the boys began to believe that the island they sought was retreating from before 64 them. Hank was almost certain they were moving in a circle, but Halstead, with a keen sense of location, insisted that they were going straight, even if very slowly, to the nameless island.
“I see it,” breathed the young skipper, exultantly, at last.
“What—the island?” bellowed Hank Butts.