CHAPTER XXV

A CRY FOR HELP

With anxious faces the travelers looked at one another. The alarm caused by the discovery that they were on a floating island made them forget their usual caution. Even so seasoned a tourist as Uriah Snodgrass had been at fault, and he did not cease to blame himself for it.

“We’ll do the best we can,” he said. “This is more my fault than any one else's, as I proposed it in such a hurry.”

“Can’t we follow our trail back?” asked Ned.

“We can try, but I fancy we wandered over rather a crooked one.”

This they found to be true. They managed to follow their tracks for some distance but soon lost the trail amid the trees and dense underbrush.

They had come off without breakfast and the pangs of hunger began to make themselves manifest. As for the professor, once the first shock of being lost had passed, he became so much interested in catching some curious bugs that he paid little attention to the boys. However, they kept him in sight, for it would not do to become separated in this dense forest.

“If we’d only told Bob to fire a gun or do something in case we didn’t return soon,” remarked Ned with a sigh. “Poor Bob! I wish we were back where he is.”

“No use wishing,” spoke up Jerry. “We’ve got to keep on. Maybe we’ll hit the trail soon.”

On and on they wandered but only, it seemed, to get the more hopelessly lost. The two boys were much alarmed, but the scientist, his whole mind given over to collecting bugs, was somewhat indifferent.

“Hark! What was that?” cried Ned suddenly.

“Sounded like a gun,” said Jerry.

“It was a gun,” replied Ned. “It was over this way,” and he pointed to the left. “Come on. Maybe it’s a party of hunters.”

Calling to the professor, the boys turned in the direction from which the report had come. They had not gone far before another gun shot was heard and they knew they were in the right direction, but toward whom they were going they did know.

“Anyway it’s some person or persons,” argued Ned. “We can help them or they can help us. We’ll have company if we are lost.”

The gun continued to be fired at intervals and but for this the three would not have known how to proceed. The reports sound very close now and in about ten minutes the two boys and the professor saw something white glimmering before them in the light of the sun that was just breaking through the clouds.

“There’s the lake! There’s water! We’re on the shore!” cried Jerry.

A few moments later they had emerged from the dense forest and saw before them their own tent with Bob at the entrance loading and firing his rifle.

“Good boy!” cried Ned. “How did you think to do it, old chap? How are you?”

“I was worried when I found you all gone,” said the invalid. “I thought you might have gone off in the woods and, as I looked out of the tent I thought I saw the land moving. That scared me and I got up. I feared I was on a floating island so I fired the gun to call you back as I didn’t know what had happened while you were away.”

“You’re on a floating island all right,” remarked Jerry. “We got lost in the woods, looking for some way out of the difficulty, and your firing gave us the right direction.”

“How do you feel, Bob?” asked the professor.

“A little better, I think.”

But Bob’s flushed face and unnaturally bright eye did not bear out this statement.

“You had better go back to bed,” decided Mr. Snodgrass. “I’ll give you some more medicine. I think you are getting a touch of malaria mixed with your fever.”

The exertion of getting out of bed and firing the gun had greatly weakened Bob and he was much worse. They ate a hurried breakfast, and the professor gave the patient some more medicine.

“We ought to look for our boat,” said Ned. “If we lose that it’s all up with us. Suppose we walk along shore. We may get a sight of it.”

“Good idea,” agreed Uriah Snodgrass. “I’ll stay here with Bob and you and Jerry can move in opposite directions. You can’t get lost if you follow the shore and the one who first sights the boat can fire three shots and they will call the other to him.”

Ned and Jerry agreed that this was a good plan and started off. Ned walked quickly along the shore, keeping a watch for the _Dartaway_ but the sight of her did not reward his eyes. As he was proceeding, having tramped for over two hours, he heard a noise in the bushes just ahead of him where a little point of land jutted out into the lake.

“Some one is coming,” reasoned the lad, holding his gun in readiness as he thought of the ugly negroes.

An instant later a figure came into view. Ned started as he caught sight of it. He could not see it distinctly but he observed a gun barrel. Then he had a glimpse of a red cap.

“Jerry!” he called. “Is that you?”

“That’s who it is! I was just thinking I had met an Indian or a colored man. See anything of the boat?” and Jerry stepped from behind the bushes and confronted his chum.

“Not a sign. Did you?”

“No, and between us, we completed the circuit of the island. Must be about six miles around it.”

“No boat,” murmured Ned. “What are we going to do?”

“Land only knows. This island is still floating, and it seems to be continually moving in the same general direction--that is south. Maybe the boat is drifting also and we’ll catch up to her or she will with us.”

“I hope so. But we’d better go back now. I hate to take bad news to the professor, though.”

There was no help for it, however, and soon the two youths were tramping back toward camp. The scientist was much disappointed that they had not been successful, but he was more worried over Bob’s condition.

“I’m afraid of the result if he doesn’t get different medicine soon,” he said.

The day was a gloomy one in spite of the fine weather that followed the storm. The campers were in no mood for doing anything and sat about listlessly, now and then taking an observation to see how their island was behaving. It seemed to be about in the middle of the big lake, though moving slowly southward.

“It’s bound to fetch up somewhere,” observed Ned.

“If it doesn’t strike some low place in the lake and become anchored,” replied Jerry. “But I don’t see that we can do anything. We might swim off when it gets near the mainland, but we’ll be in a bad way without our boat.”

There were uneasy sleepers in camp that night. Early in the morning Ned and Jerry were up to see if, by any chance, their boat had drifted near them.

“We’ll take another tramp along shore,” proposed Jerry.

Once more they started off. Jerry had gone about two miles when he heard three shots fired.

“That’s the signal!” he exclaimed. “Ned must have sighted the _Dartaway_!”

He hurried back, passing through the camp and telling the professor what he believed had happened. Nor was he mistaken. He found Ned pacing up and down the shore, stripped to his underwear and ready to plunge into the lake.

“Do you see it?” called Jerry.

“Looks like her off there,” and Ned pointed to a speck on the lake. “I’m going to swim out to her.”

“Is it safe? There might be alligators or big snakes.”

“I’ve got to take a chance. We can never get away from here without the boat. You watch me and if you see anything that looks dangerous--why shoot.”

Ned waded out into the water until he got to his depth and then he began swimming. Jerry anxiously watched for a sight of some big reptile or saurian but his fears were groundless. In half an hour Ned had reached the floating object.

“I wonder if it’s the boat?” said Jerry to himself.

His question was answered a moment later for, over the surface of the lake sounded the explosions that told that Ned had started the engine of the _Dartaway_.

In a short time the boat was close in shore. Jerry waded out to her and then, in their recovered craft, the chums headed for camp, where they found the professor much delighted at their success.

To avoid a repetition of the floating away of the boat they tied her by a long rope to a tree close to the tent. Then, in much better spirits, they sat down to plan what next to do.

“I think we’d better all get into the boat and hunt for the outlet of this lake,” said Mr. Snodgrass. “There is no question but what the one leading into Lake Okeechobee is closed. There must be another or the water would not continue to fall. I believe that--”

The professor’s belief was destined to remain unannounced, for at that instant there sounded a cry over the water.

“Help! Help! Help!”

“Those are girls’ voices!” remarked Jerry, springing to his feet.