“Well, tell us about it later,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “Now we are going to take care of you.”
They made a sort of little bed on poles, with pieces of the sail-cloth, and the men carried Jack to the camp. There Captain Crane, who knew something about doctoring, bound up his leg, and when the lost boy had been given some hot soup, and put in a comfortable bed, he felt much better.
A little later he told what had happened to him.
“After you became so sick,” said Jack to Cousin Jasper, the others listening to the story, “I walked to the other end of the island to see if I could not see, from there, some ship I could signal to come and get us. I was so tired I must have fallen asleep when I sat down to rest, and when I woke up, and went back to where you had been, Mr. Dent, you weren’t there. I didn’t know what had happened to you and I couldn’t find you.”
“Men came in a boat and took me away,” said Cousin Jasper, “though I didn’t know it at the time. When I found myself in the hospital I wondered where you were, but they all thought I was out of my head when I wanted them to come to the island and rescue you. So I had to send for Mr. Bobbsey to come.”
“And we found the cave, didn’t we?” cried Freddie.
“Yes, only for you and Flossie, just stumbling on it, as it were,” said his father, “we might still be hunting for Jack.”
“I’m glad we found you,” said Flossie.
“So’m I,” added Freddie.
“I’m glad myself,” Jack said, with a smile at the Bobbsey twins. “I was getting tired of staying on the island all alone.”