"I want ter make sure she's in workin' order," he said with a grim comprehension of the lips, "before we do any investigating."
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE ISLAND OF MYSTERY.
There was an air of oppression, hard to explain, about the island. But they all felt it. The boys were inclined to talk in whispers and even Dick Donovan's usual lively spirits seemed daunted. There was something about the blistered, barren look of the cleared space on the edge of which they had landed that gave them all an odd feeling of melancholy.
Zeb was the first to shake this off.
"Our first job," he said, "is to find out who is on the island and what they've been doing."
Here and there in the black, swampy-looking bare space, they could see where holes had been dug, but when they examined the spade, which Jack had seen from the Wondership as they descended, they found that it was rusty and had evidently not been used for a long time.
It was the same in the rude hut which they examined. Some rusty utensils and a few ragged old garments were all that was inside. The dust lay thick on the floor and a large squirrel leaped out of the roof as they entered.