The Blue Envelope | Page 5

to cry for help. We must stop them if we can find a way."
Catching up their rifles they crept stealthily from their tents. Nothing was to be seen save the camp and the forest.
"Think we better try to follow them?" asked Lucile, as she struggled into her shoes, wrapping the laces round and round her ankles for the sake of speed.
"I don't know," said Marian. "They're probably rough men and we're only girls. But we must try to find out what has happened."
In a moment they were creeping stealthily, rifles in hand, toward the beach. As they paused to listen they heard no sound. Either the intruders had rounded the point or had stopped rowing.
Lucile threw the circle of her flashlight out to sea.
"Stop that!" whispered Marian in alarm. "They might shoot."
"Look!" exclaimed Lucile suddenly; "our boat's gone!"
Hastening down the beach, they found it was all too true; the rowboat had disappeared.
"There weren't any men," exclaimed Marian with sudden conviction. "That boy's taken our boat and rowed away."
"Yes, there were men," insisted Lucile. "I just saw a track in the sand. There it is." She pointed to the beach.
An inspection of the sand showed three sets of footprints leading to the water's edge where a boat had been grounded. These same footprints were about the spot where the stolen boat had been launched.
"There's one queer person among them," said Lucile, after studying the marks closely. "He limps; one step is long and one short, also one shoe is smaller than the other. We'd know that man if we ever saw him."
"Listen!" said Marian suddenly.
Out of the silence that ensued there came the faint pop-pop-pop of a motorboat.
"Behind the point," said Lucile.
"Our motorboat!" whispered Marian.
Without a word Lucile started down the beach, then up the creek. She was followed close by Marian. Tripped by creeping vines, torn at by underbrush, swished by wet ferns, they in time arrived at the point where the motorboat had been moored.
"Gone!" whispered Lucile.
"We've been deceived and robbed," said Marian mournfully. "Deceived by a boy. His companions left him swimming in the sea so we would find him. As soon as we were asleep, he crept away and towed the schooner down the river, then he flashed a signal and the others came in for him. Probably Indians and half-breeds. They might have left us a rowboat, at least!" she exclaimed in disgust.
With early dawn streaking the sky they sat down to consider. The loss of their motorboat was a serious matter. They had but a scant supply of food, and while their aunt might arrive at any moment, again she might not. If she did not, they had no way of leaving the island.
"We'd better go down the beach," said Marian. "They might have engine trouble, or something, and be obliged to land, then perhaps we could somehow get our boat."
"It's the only thing we can do," said Lucile. "It's a good thing we had our food supply in our tent, or they would have taken that."
"Speaking of food," said Marian, "I'm hungry. We'd better have our breakfast before we start."
CHAPTER II
A BOLD STROKE REWARDED
Bacon grease was spilled and toast burned in the preparation of breakfast, which was devoured in gulps. Then, with some misgivings but much determination, the two girls hurried away up the beach in the direction from whence had come the pop-popping of their stolen motorboat.
Coming at last to the place where sandy shore was replaced by ragged bowlders, they began making their way through the tangled mass of underbrush, fallen tree-trunks and ferns, across the point of land which cut them off from the next sandy beach.
"This would be splendid if it wasn't so serious," said Marian as they reached the crest of the ridge and prepared to descend. "I always did like rummaging about in an unexplored wilderness. Look at that fallen yellow-pine; eight feet through if it is an inch; and the ferns are almost tall enough to hide it. And look at those tamaracks down in that gully; they look like black knights. Wouldn't they make a picture?"
"Not just now; come on," exclaimed Lucile, who was weary of battling with the jungle. "Let's get down to the beach and see what's there. There's a long stretch of beach, I think, maybe half a mile. But we must be careful how we make our way down. We might discover something--and we might be discovered first."
To descend a rock-ribbed hill, overgrown with tangled underbrush and buried in decaying tree-trunks, is hardly easier than to ascend it. Both girls were thoroughly out of breath as they finally parted the branches of a fir tree and peered through to where the beach, a yellow ribbon of sand, circled away to the north.
"Not there," whispered Marian.
Lucile gripped her cousin's arm.
"What's that thing two-thirds