"Do you mean to say we must stay out here all night?" gasped Helen.
"I hate to say it, but it may be true," said Mae slowly. "Still, a launch may loom up. Any provisions left?"
At this the remains of their lunch were dragged out from the cabin, and as they viewed the most glorious sunset they had ever witnessed, they munched crumbs, and tried to keep up their spirits, which were plainly going down with the ball of red gold.
It was a gloomy prospect. No way of sending a message home, no one to give them a tow, and as Cleo put it just "nobody nor nawthin'."
It was fast coming nightfall! Brave as they were the scouts worried more about the home folks than they did at their own predicament.
"If I could only let mama know!" sighed Julia with a melancholy look at the only things moving, and they were merely sunset clouds.
"Never give up," counselled Mae. "We are in no danger, at least that is something."
"What's that song about the 'dove on the mast'?" asked Cleo moodily. "Something about he did mourn, and mourn and mourn."
"Don't you dare perpetrate that," said Mae. "You are thinking of the famous old sob song, 'Oh, Fair Dove, oh, Fond Dove'. But please forget it. It does not fit in the picture."
"Just the same," insisted Grace, "I think we ought to go in to that island. See how dark it is getting, and there might be some help there."