“Hello! What’s the mermaid pondering—”
“Oh, Gar!” gasped Nancy, turning to find their friend almost beside her upon the dock. “That girl, Orilla, has gone off with Rosa. And Rosa had been stunned from a fall down the hill into the water.”
“Seems to me, Nancy, you’re pretty well stunned yourself,” spoke up the boy. “You look all in.”
“Don’t mind me, please! But think, quickly! What can we do to get—Rosa!”
“What makes you so dreadfully worried?”
Then poor Nancy tried to explain what had happened. As she talked she did feel her own loss of strength, as Gar had said, she was almost exhausted herself.
“Don’t worry,” comforted the boy. “I’ll get Paul and we’ll race out in our launch. I guess Orilla Rigney can’t beat the Whitecap and I guess she doesn’t know any more about mushroom islands than I do. You want to come along, Nancy?”
“Oh, yes, I couldn’t stand the anxiety of waiting,” Nancy answered. “I’ll get into dry things—”
“And I’ll pull in here for you in a couple of jiffs,” Gar assured her, offering her his hand as she left the dock by the shortest cut—the hill that had proved too much for Rosa’s rolling exercise.
“Do you think I had better tell Margot?” Nancy asked, when they had reached the point where their paths divided.