“Good old Drew Lane,” he murmured. “He’ll get ’em. You’ll see.”
But after all—. His spirits drooped. After all, what could it matter? He might discover who the kidnapers were. But would he trace them to Isle Royale? Ah, no. That was expecting too much!
He felt a tightening at his throat as he thought of his team mates and the coach, the Grand Old Man, doing their best to stave off defeat. “It’s not that I’m so important as an individual,” he told himself humbly, “but I’m part of the piece, like one stone in an arch. Without me the team must fail.
“Why am I here?” he cried out suddenly, springing to his feet. “How can I get away?”
“Perhaps you can’t,” the guide said quietly. “We’ll do the best we can.
“Listen!” The guide blew out the lamp, then quietly opened the door. Bing, the dog, uttered a low growl. He was silenced by his master.
From somewhere away off in the dark came a weird, wild call. It was answered here and answered there. Then such a chorus as never before was heard on sea or land rose above the sound of rushing water and sighing pines.
“Wolves,” Ed commented briefly. “Bush wolves. Hundreds of ’em on the island. They’re all singing to-night. There will be a storm. Listen again.
“There is a little sea to-night. To-morrow it will be raging. The distance from Rock of Ages on this island to the mainland is seventeen miles. Rock of Ages is forty miles from here. There are power boats here, but no gasoline. You’d have to row. You’d never make it.”
“Our only chance is Passage Island,” Berley Todd put in.