“How is our patient getting along, Ralph?” asked Harry, who was steering.
“Breathing easily, but still unconscious. Give us all the speed you can get, Percy. This boy’s life may be the reward of a few extra miles coaxed out of the engine.”
“I’ll do my best,” young Simmons assured him.
With Persimmons making good his promise, it was not long before the tender’s headway was checked off Dr. Chadwick’s island, a pretty, wooded spot with a bungalow showing amid the trees. The bungalow stood back from the water up a steep, grassy slope. The first rays of the rising sun were gleaming on this when the little tender came to a stop at a neat stone dock.
“Blow the whistle,” ordered Ralph. “I guess somebody is up. Anyhow, there is smoke coming from the chimney.”
Obediently, Percy Simmons began sounding the pneumatic whistle.
Toot-toot-toot-toot-toot!
At the fifth blast the figure of a servant appeared from the bungalow at the top of the slope.
Ralph snatched up the tender’s megaphone.
“Dr. Chadwick at home?” he shouted.