Running back to the cove, which was not visible from where he had been sitting, Worth saw the schooner at which Quorum was gazing so eagerly. She was not more than a mile from them, and was bearing rapidly down towards the island, though from a direction opposite to that in which Indian Key lay. Still that did not dispel their hope that Sumner might be on board and coming to their relief. They could see that the schooner's deck was crowded with men, most of whom, as she approached more closely, proved to be negroes. Among them Worth's keen eyes distinguished, besides the whites composing her crew, one young white man who for a few minutes he was certain must be Sumner. As the schooner dropped anchor, and this person was sculled ashore in a small boat by one of the negroes, they saw, to their great disappointment, that he was a stranger.
He seemed surprised at seeing them on the key, and still more so when a glance at their camp showed the use they had been making of the stores they had so unexpectedly found there two days before.
"Oh, sir," exclaimed Worth, as the stranger landed, "have you seen anything of Sumner Rankin? I mean of a boy on a raft?"
"No, I have not," was the answer. "But I see that some one, and I expect it is the boy before me, has been making a free use of my stores."
"Are they yours?" asked Worth, flushing. "We didn't know whose they were or who left them here, and as we were almost starving, we ventured to take what we needed; but I shall be glad to pay for whatever we have used." With this the boy produced a roll of bills, and looked inquiringly at the stranger.
"That's all right," laughed the other. "If you were starving, and had need of them, of course you acted rightly in taking them. I am only too glad that they were of use to you. I see, too, that you have sheltered them from the weather."
"Yes," replied Worth, "and it rained so hard night before last, that if they had not been under cover some of them would have been spoiled."
"Then we are quits," said the stranger; "and you have already more than paid for what you can have used in so short a time. I have bought this key, and intended to get here as soon as those things, which I sent up on the mail-boat, but was unexpectedly delayed. My name is Haines, and yours is—"
"Worth Manton," answered the boy; "and I was cruising up the reef in a canoe with my friend Sumner Rankin. When we got here, some one stole our canoes, or they got lost in some way, and so we were obliged to stay. We found this old negro Quorum here. Yesterday Sumner went over to Indian Key on a raft, to see if he could find the canoes, or get a vessel to take us off. We haven't seen anything of him since he left, and I am awfully afraid that something has happened to him."
"Oh, I guess not!" said the new-comer; "but if you like you can go over there on this schooner and look for him. The captain is in a great hurry to go on up the reef, as he is already two days late; but I guess he will drop you at the key, and stop there for you on his way back to Key West, if you want him to. But what is it that smells so good?" Here the speaker sniffed at an appetizing odor that was wafted to them from the direction of the little camp.