With Bob and Joe at the oars the yawl glided over the glassy waters very swiftly, and when she was pulled up on the sand beyond reach of the tide the old sailor said, as he raised the compass:
"Lead the way, lads, an' make the course pretty nigh direct, for we don't want to cruise 'round any more'n is necessary. Joe, you take the shovel an' ax, so's the leaders can travel light."
By following up their own trail, which was distinctly marked in the underbrush, the boys had no difficulty in going directly to the ruined hut, stopping only once on the way to quench their thirst at the spring.
"This is the place, an' there's the hole in the timber where we found the paper," Harry said, as he laid his hand on the crumbling joist. "What puzzles me is to know from which side of it we're to measure forty-one fathoms."
"There can't be much of a mistake if we're to travel nor'-nor'-east," and Bob placed the compass on that portion of the shattered timber which yet remained in the sand. "It'll be a decently hard job to walk in a straight line, though, an' if we should happen to get an inch or so out of the way at the start it would throw the whole course askew."
"A few feet wouldn't matter a great deal while we've got the palmetto to guide us," Joe suggested.
"We have, if it's standin' yet; but this 'ere document was fixed up a good while ago, my hearty, an' the tree they took their bearin's from may have been blowed down a dozen times since then."
"I don't believe that could have happened more than once," Harry said, laughingly, "unless palmettoes are different from other trees."
"Well," Bob replied, gravely, "once would be enough to knock us out of reckoning, an' instead of standin' here in the hot sun chatterin' like a lot of parrots we'd better find the true course."
To lay out a straight line through the woods with nothing but a compass as guide is by no means a simple task, and of this the old sailor was well aware. He set about the work methodically, heeding not the time spent providing the result arrived at was correct, and in doing this the assistance of all was necessary.