“It may be all foolishness, of course,” he said, “but I think that we ought not to leave the island unguarded to-night. Daniels and his son have had a taste of that wire fence and they may have figured out some way to get around it—it would be a simple enough matter to do, after all.”
“Well, what’s your proposal?” inquired Billy Barnes.
“To patrol the island all night, taking turns on watch. It’s not more than a mile or so all round it, and it ought to be an easy matter to keep the ground thoroughly covered.”
“Rifles and rattlesnakes!” burst out Pudge, “I thought this was to be a sort of working vacation and not a civil war.”
Frank smiled, and then assumed a graver expression as he went on:
“There is so much valuable property here which it would be easy for malicious people to injure that I wouldn’t feel justified in leaving the island unguarded all night. What do the rest of you think?”
“Just as you do, Frank,” rejoined Harry heartily, while Billy and Pudge nodded vigorously; “we’ve got to keep a sharp lookout. I nominate myself and Pudge for the first watch—say from eight to twelve. You and Billy can go on duty from midnight till daylight.”
After some discussion this order of procedure was adopted. Promptly at eight o’clock Harry and Pudge Perkins went “on duty,” while Frank and Billy turned in to get what sleep they could. As a matter of precaution, when they came to the island, the boys had brought along a revolver, and Harry was armed with this when he went on duty. He was not, of course, to use it as a weapon of offence, but it was agreed that, in case there was any alarm during his watch, he was to fire it three times, when the others would come to his assistance.
Harry and Pudge accompanied each other as far as the gate, and then threaded their way down the path among the rocks toward the beach. A mild current had been turned on in the fence, enough to give an uncomfortable shock to any one tampering with it, but not enough to exhaust the storage batteries which supplied it.