“Hang on!” he urged, as Don caught a bracing wire to keep the two craft together, using his hand to fend off the rub of wood against the Dragonfly’s fabric body. “I’ll break into the shack and get oars.”
Agile, supple, quick, Chick clambered to the planks.
He ran around the small building, old, dilapidated, weather-worn.
The door, he recalled from earlier visits, was toward the more solid shore a hundred yards beyond, from which a narrow runway enabled visitors to cross deep, mud-bottomed channels.
To Chick’s surprise, the door stood ajar!
He dashed in, waited until a flash of the swiftly coming electrical storm gave him light, located the racks of oars at one side, secured a pair and hurried out.
“Take flares!” he urged. “You might need to signal. I’ll stay here!” He was anxious to make amends for his earlier weakness by braving the storm, guarding the Dragonfly as best he could, in spite of the spooky look of that open door of the deserted interior of the shack.
Agreeing, as soon as they had secured the signal lights, Don and Garry sculled for all they were worth, got the dory away from the airplane, and then took their places, rowing hard for the stricken shape of the mail ’plane half way down the Southern shore.
Chick hastily went from post to post, making certain that their knotted ropes were secure.
Then he turned back to the old hovel.