The boat was an indistinct blur, some two hundred yards out, and as they shouted they strained their eyes for sight of the fisherman’s boy. But they couldn’t see surely, and after an instant they pulled vigorously on the rope. It came fast.
“Swimming!” answered Nelson in angry disgust. “The fool has untied the line!”
FOLLOWS WITH A RESCUE, AND INTRODUCES FRIENDS IN NEED
“If he has,” said Bob quietly, “he’ll probably drown out there before night.”
They pulled the empty line in silently. Barry, wet and woe-begone, huddled himself against the storm, and watched out of reach of the waves.
“I wonder if there’s a boat around here,” said Nelson.
They turned and looked about them. They seemed to be on the end of the island, for beyond them at a little distance the waves raced by a sandy point. To their right, as they faced inland, a beach stretched away until lost in the blur of the beating rain. In front of them was beach grass, flattened under the wind, and beyond, on higher ground, a few stunted cedars and underbrush.
“We’ll have to find one,” said Nelson. “Two of us had better stay here, and two go and hunt. Who’ll stay?”
“All right, Tom and I’ll stay,” said Nelson. “You and Dan see what you can find. Maybe there’s a path or a road up there; looks as though there might be. You’d better put your coats on.”
“Can’t get any wetter,” answered Dan, shivering. They untied the bundle, which had come safely ashore, and pulled their dripping coats on. Then, with Barry beside them, they started off, and in a minute were out of sight.
It was weary waiting there on the beach with the rain pelting them, and the wind chilling them through and through.
Every now and then they faced the wind, and tried to make the boy in the sloop hear them. But it is doubtful if he did, for their words seemed to be blown back into their faces. Nelson looked at his watch. The soaking had not affected it, and it proclaimed the time to be twenty minutes past four.
“It’ll be dark before very long,” he said, “if this storm keeps up.”
“I didn’t notice, but I guess it was about a quarter to three.”
A half hour passed, and another had almost gone, when a faint hail reached them. It seemed at first to come from the sloop, and they put their hands before their mouths and answered as loudly as they could. Then it came again, and unmistakably from behind them. They looked, and presently, like gray wraiths, figures appeared against the sky line.