Once again, as they looked, Red said hoarsely: “Listen!”
As before, there came the long whisper that ended with a sigh.
But even as they rested on their oars there came to their listening ears a louder sound, the drumming of an airplane’s motor.
“They are coming!” Red took up his oars. “Passage Island is just over there. It can’t be far now.”
CHAPTER XXVII
A HAUNTED BAY
As you have guessed, the plane heard by the Red Rover and Berley Todd was Drew Lane’s red racer. And Johnny Thompson was riding in the rear cockpit.
Drew had planned his trip well. They should have reached the island before dark. But misfortune had befallen them. Forced down by a leaky fuel pipe, they had found themselves on the surface of a small lake in the midst of a great forest where there was no one. After two hours of labor with a few tools and scant material, they had managed to repair the leak. This delay had forced them to fly in the night, and here they were approaching an island known to them only by reports and by a map that lay spread out before Drew in the cockpit.
Despite his meager knowledge, he did wonderfully well. Having arrived at the east end of the island, he flew directly across it. Catching the gleams of light that came from three narrow bands of water, he knew them to be Rock Harbor, Tobin’s Harbor and Duncan’s Bay. Choosing the middle one of these, he dropped low to go scooting along less than two hundred feet in air.
As he flew, the gleam of a powerful searchlight, attached to the plane, played upon the water.
Of a sudden that light shot upward, then blinked out.