The paper fell in the water, but the colored man rescued it and then stood for a long time gazing at the aeroplane growing smaller in the distance. Hours before Captain Anderson’s Valkaria reached the pier that evening, the Pelican was out of sight. And the last that the vigilant negro saw of it was as it faded into the southeast sky.
Even the stupid Ba knew that the message he had in his shirt would mean a wild commotion among the passengers who alighted from the Valkaria. For a time he held aloof, waiting to speak to Captain Anderson alone. It was wholly dark when Mr. and Mrs. Leighton and Captain and Mrs. Anderson reached the house.
A few minutes later the two men rushed from the cottage, while two women followed behind with wild exclamations. Ba thrust his message into Captain Anderson’s hands and disappeared in the night. Andy’s note read:
“Bulletin No. 1. Took more gasoline at Leighton’s shop at eight minutes after one. Weather fair, with light southwest wind. Started for Grand Bahama Banks on Pelican at 1:12 P.M. Hope to reach Nassau, New Providence, to-morrow after stop on Grande Banks. Will report by wire on reaching destination. Am well and confident. Love to all.
“Andy.”
If the foolhardy boy could have witnessed the scene that followed in the Anderson home, he would have abandoned his aviation ideas on the spot. In an hour the philosophy and arguments of Mr. Leighton and Captain Anderson began to calm Andy’s mother in a degree, and then those concerned proceeded to make what plans they could to accomplish, if possible, the boy’s rescue, for it seemed to be conceded that even then he must be verging on destruction, if indeed he were not already lost.
At Captain Anderson’s suggestion, Lake Worth was immediately called by telephone, and the Nassau Steamer Company was asked to notify its steamers in transit by wireless of Andy’s flight. He would probably be north of their course, but they were asked to keep a lookout. They were also asked to repeat the message to Nassau, that spongers and fish boats leaving port might also be on the watch.
“He may change his mind,” argued the captain, “and make a landing far down the peninsula, without putting out to sea. If he does, he will be in a wilderness.”
Mr. and Mrs. Leighton were so agitated that they could not even protest when the captain, a little later, determined to set out in the Valkaria at once and proceed down the river. It was one hundred and thirty miles, at least, from the captain’s home to Lake Worth. There were little settlements here and there on the mainland side of the river and a wilderness for the entire distance on the peninsula side, where a strip of palmetto scrub and sand separated the sea from the river.