CHAPTER VII.
ALONE ON A STRANGE COAST.
When the boys made the startling discovery that the sea-plane had disappeared and that they were alone on the strange coast, they plumped down on the sand without a single idea in the world except that they were utterly tired out and weak from hunger.
They could not account in any way for the mysterious happening that had deprived them of their tried and true friends.
Not for a moment did they imagine that they had been deserted by intent. They knew full well that even in the face of great danger Captain Johnson and Josiah Freeman were not the kind of men who would fly away, without sign or signal, and leave a comrade in distress, let alone these boys for whom either of the men would have spilled his last drop of blood.
“The coast patrol nabbed them,” was the opinion of Billy.
“They were held up at the point of a bayonet, I’ll bet,” argued Henri, “for there is no sign of a struggle, and we would have heard it if there had been any shooting.”
“However it was,” figured Billy, “they never quit of their own accord; they would never have left us unless they had been hauled away by force. Now it is up to us to skirmish for ourselves, which, anyhow, I expected to do sooner or later. There’s no use staying here, for they will be coming after us next.”
Wearily the boys plodded through the slush, backtracking to the foot of the hill where they had left the aëroplane. The fading moon was lost behind a wall of slowly rising mist, and the dawn was breaking in the east when the boys finally stumbled upon the place that held their prize. Wholly exhausted, they threw themselves full length upon the ground and slept like logs.
The sun was broadly shining when Billy reached out a lazy arm to poke his chum, who was snuggled up in the grass and breathing like a porpoise.