Helplessly the girls all turned to Nyoda, asking, “What shall we do?”
Nyoda stood still and tried to face the situation calmly. She held her flashlight close to the rock and looked carefully all around the edge. At one side there was a tiny fissure, not more than half an inch wide and about six inches long, caused by the irregular shape of the rock. Nyoda regarded this minute opening thoughtfully. “If we could put something through that opening which would act as a signal, we might attract somebody’s attention who wouldn’t be able to hear us calling,” she said at length. “Our voices are so muffled in here they can’t carry very far outside.”
“Is there anybody on the island to see it?” asked Gladys doubtfully.
“There are some people here,” answered Nyoda, “because the fishermen stay all the year round. You remember those houses we passed on the other side of the quarry, where the nets were hanging in the yard?”
“What shall we use for a signal of distress?” asked Gladys. “Not one of us has a tie or a ribbon on today.”
“Use my dress skirt,” said Katherine generously. “It’s so torn anyway that it’ll never feel the same again, even if it recovers from this trip.” Which was perfectly true. So they tore the wide hem from her dress, which made a pennant about six feet long. Then Sahwah had a further inspiration, and, dipping her finger into a dark puddle formed on the floor by a thin stream of moisture trickling down the wall, she wrote the word HELP on the strip. Nyoda poked the end through the opening and shoved the rest out after it, keeping the other end in her hand, and she could feel by the tugging at the strip that the high wind had caught the portion outside and was whipping it about.
“Now shout for all you’re worth,” commanded Nyoda.
Early that Saturday morning the Captain had aroused Slim from his peaceful slumbers unceremoniously. “Hurry up and come over,” he said, in response to Slim’s protesting grunt. “Uncle Theodore’s here with his automobile and he’s going to take a run over to Freeport this morning and he said he would take all the fellows along that were ready at nine o’clock. Hurry.”
Slim needed no second invitation and roused himself immediately, while the Captain sped to collect the remainder of the Sandwiches, which was accomplished in short order, as none of the other invitations involved resurrection. Nine o’clock found them all on the curbstone before the Captain’s house, standing beside Uncle Theodore’s big car, waiting for the word to pile in. The ride to Freeport was accomplished in a few hours’ time and after dinner Uncle Theodore turned the boys loose to see the town by themselves while he transacted the business which had taken him thither. Freeport had no attraction outside of its harbor, and thither the boys betook themselves without delay. Passenger steamers left every half hour for the various islands nearby; lime boats, tugs and scows crowded the mouth of the river, and the whole atmosphere breathed of ships. The boys stood and watched a while and then pined for something to do.