Bones, eager to explore, leaped after her and was off in a flash before Louise could seize his collar.
Penny followed her chum ashore, beaching her skiff in a clump of water plants. “This place looks like a natural haunt for cottonmouths or moccasins,” she remarked. “We’ll have to watch out for snakes.”
Already Louise was edging along in the soft muck, alertly keeping an eye upon all overhead limbs from which a poisonous reptile might drop.
Annoyed by thorny bushes which teethed into her jacket, she turned to protest to Penny that the roses were not worth the trouble it would take to gather them.
But the words never were spoken.
For just then, from some distance inland, came the sound of men’s voices. Louise listened a moment and retreated toward the boat.
“Someone is here on the island,” she whispered nervously. “Let’s leave!”
All afternoon the girls had floated through the outer reaches of the swamp without seeing a single human being. Now to hear voices in this isolated area was slightly unnerving even to Penny. But she was not one to turn tail and run without good reason.
“Why should we leave?” she countered, careful to keep her voice low. “We have a perfect right to be here. They’re probably fishermen from Riverview.”
Louise was not so easily reassured.