Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island | Page 7

five to twenty-five miles down. Don't go along, Dave, unless you want to."
"Better come home with me," urged Frank.
"Do you need me along, Jerry?" queried Dave uncertainly.
"No--" shortly--"no I don't. Mr. Fulton does--Tod does."
Jerry rose stiffly to his feet and started slowly off in the faint moonlight, without so much as a look behind.
"So long, Jerry," called Frank. "Come on, Dave."
But Dave slowly shook his head and reluctantly followed the footsteps of his chum.
"Hold on a minute, old man; I'll stick with you."

CHAPTER III
LOST ISLAND
It was only a thin edge of a moon that now stood barely above the low line of tree-covered hills beyond the east bank of the river. The light it gave was a misty, watery sort of ray that was a doubtful help in walking over the broken shore line. The two boys were too occupied in watching their footing to do much talking. Jerry led the way, bearing to the water's edge, finally stopping where a light rowboat had been pulled well up on the rocky beach.
"We'll have to divide forces, I guess. In this uncertain light we never could be sure of seeing the boat if she was on the other side. I'll cut across while you go down this bank."
"Why not take the boat and go down the middle?"
"Too hard work getting through the shallows, and, besides, this way we're closest to the place where the boat would most likely have been snagged. We can go lots faster on foot. We'll keep about opposite each other; we can yell across once in a while and it won't be quite so lonesome. You go ahead till you get below the riffles, and wait there till I catch up with you."
Jerry stepped into the boat and took up the oars. Dave gave the boat a mighty shove that almost put the stern under the water.
"Hey! What you kids doing?" bellowed a gruff voice that the boys hardly recognized as being that of Mr. Aikens.
"Just duck and say nothing," called Jerry guardedly to Dave. "He might try to stop us."
So Dave scurried into the shadows of near-by trees, while Jerry bent low over his oars and noiselessly shot the boat out into safe waters. It was the work of only a few minutes to push the nose of his boat high and dry on the sand of the opposite shore. He was in the heavy shadow of a big cottonwood and felt safe from peering eyes, so without wasting time to mask his movements he jumped out and scurried along the bank. A level stretch of a hundred yards carried him around a bend; he stopped for a brief rest and a glance toward the other side, where a great crashing of bushes told him that Dave was safely out of sight and well on his way toward the riffles.
A chuckle almost escaped Jerry as he listened to the thrashing about, but remembrance of their errand killed the laughter. In fact, the chuckle turned to a genuine sob, for Tod Fulton was his closest chum. So, without an instant's pause, he made his way to the foot of the riffles, where their search would really begin. How soon it would end, there was no telling; it might be one mile; it might be twenty. But Jerry grimly determined that he would carry the undertaking through to the end.
The riffles was really a succession of pools of treacherous depths, joined by foaming, rock-broken rapids. The bank was lined with great boulders through which a day-time path wound a difficult way. Jerry wasted no time in trying to follow it, but skirted far around through a waist-high cornfield. A barb-wire fence held him prisoner long enough to allow Dave to break cover first on the opposite shore and send a vigorous but quavery "hello" across the water.
"I'm stuck on the fence!" shouted Jerry in return. "Go ahead. I'll be along directly."
But he noticed that Dave stood waiting on the shore when he finally managed to release himself and broke through the thin fringe of willows. "All right, Dave," he urged. "Let's not be losing any time."
For a while the going was much easier. On Jerry's side a wide reach of sand lay smooth and firm in the pale moonlight. On Dave's side a few yards of sand lay between a steep bank and the water's edge, but every few hundred feet a shallow creek broke through and forced wading.
There was no chance for the boat to have stranded here, and the boys hurried along. Within a mile the character of the ground changed. Now the water lapped along under high, steep banks, with tiny, willow-covered islands alternating with bass-haunted snags of dislodged trees barricaded with driftwood. The moon cast queer shadows and more than once Jerry's heart felt