Meantime, the island, lashed by the storm, looked bleak and cold, and they wondered they could ever have admired it at all. Crouched under the rubber covers, they shivered with chill, while Billie, on the front seat, Ben and Percy beside her always on the lookout, with clinched teeth and hands gripped to the wheel, guided them through the hurricane. It seemed to her they must be riding on the very wings of the wind, and the speedometer announced fifty miles an hour.
As they dashed through the straggling little street of that forlorn village of Flag Point, the few indifferent natives who braved the winters on the island looked out of their windows in wonder. It seemed to them that a streak of red lightning had flashed through the storm.
“Cheer up, all of you, our troubles are over,” called Ben. “The ferry-boat’s at the landing.”
The old boat seemed like a haven of rest when they pulled into the shelter of its alley for wagons and motor cars.
“Captain, why didn’t you tell us that this was the only ferry running?” demanded Ben of the wrinkled old man.
“Because I don’t never answer questions that ain’t first been put to me,” replied the laconic boatman.
“Don’t scold him,” said Billie, wiping streams of water from her face. “Any one who is obliged to live in a God-forsaken, wretched place like Seven League Island couldn’t be supposed to have any human interest. I imagine they all get to be like their own flinty rocks, hard, sharp, and ugly.”
“Well, bloody nose and blacky eye,” put in Percy, “it’s about time for you to give an account of yourselves.”
“Yes,” said the others, who had been so stunned by the fast ride through the storm and the race for the ferry that they had almost forgotten what had happened.
“When we found,” began Merry, “that one of the tires had a puncture, Charlie and I thought we might as well make that low, scoundrelly thief who slashed the tires pay back with one of those he had stolen from Mr. Butler. So we chased over to Smugglers’ Cave, but it took longer than we had expected, because we had taken the wrong path and had to crawl around a precipice and jump over crags like two mountain goats.”