As she spoke, Patsy began energetically to wring the salt water from the skirt of her bathing suit, preparatory to retiring into the bath house.
Her companions following Patsy’s example, Miss Carroll strolled back to the spot where she had left book and parasol. The white parasol lay precisely where she had cast it aside in her hurried dash to Eleanor’s rescue. The book——Miss Martha stared down at the sand in sheer amazement. The red, cloth-bound volume she had been reading had disappeared as utterly as though the earth had suddenly opened and swallowed it.
CHAPTER XI
A TIMID CALLER
“My book! Where is it?”
Miss Martha continued to stare severely at the spot where her book had so lately lain.
“I saw you sitting there reading it,” affirmed Eleanor positively. “I remember looking up toward you just before that cranky old crab nipped my foot.”
“Certainly I was reading it. I laid it down beside my parasol. It never walked away by itself. Someone stole it. This is very unpleasant. I don’t like it at all. It simply goes to show that I was right in not allowing you girls to come down here alone. Some unknown person has evidently been hidden back there in those woods watching us.”
Miss Martha shook a dramatic finger toward the jungle.