“Pshaw! there isn’t anybody on this island,” returned his brother.
This attracted the girls’ attention and Lettie asked, curiously: “Who is ‘the dummy,’ Billy? Anybody I know?”
“Give it up! he may be one of your particular friends for all I know,” returned the younger boy. “But he doesn’t speak English—not so’s you know what he says; and I never heard, Let, that you were very proficient in French or German. How about it?”
“What does he mean, Dan?” asked Lettie, turning her back upon the other boy. “Who is this dummy?”
Dan was pretty busy with the steering of the boat, but he managed to tell the girls—briefly—of his short association with the strange boy whom Billy had almost run over in the snowstorm.
“Isn’t that strange!” exclaimed Mildred. “And do you suppose the poor dumb boy is still somewhere about here?”
“Billy says he’s camping on the island yonder,” chuckled Dan.
“Of course, that’s just like Billy,” scoffed Lettie Parker. “Chock full of romance.”
“All right, all right,” grumbled the younger boy. “You folks wait. Dummy’ll turn up again when you least expect him.”
And oddly enough Billy proved to be a prophet in this event; but the others did not believe it at the time.