"Yes, and if we don't get some gasolene pretty quick we'll be Crusoes in a mighty uncomfortable sense," commented Roy, moodily gazing about at the surrounding sea, smooth as a sheet of glass and without the sign of a boat upon it. Far off on the horizon there hung a three-masted schooner, all her sails set, in the flat calm. But she was too far off to aid them even had she been able to.
"Tell you what we'll do, let's explore the island," said Jeff Stokes suddenly.
"Of course," cried Peggy, clapping her hands, "that's what everybody does in story books when they are stranded on a desert island, and right after that they always find just what they want, even down to a silver-mounted manicure set."
"I'd like to see a tin-mounted can of gasolene," grunted Roy. Nevertheless after seeing to the engine of the aeroplane he was willing enough to set out with the others to explore this little spot of land in the Sound.
It was so small that it did not take them long to reach the summit of the low peak into which it rose in the centre.
"Oh, there's a little hut!" cried Peggy, suddenly.
Sure enough, below them, and half overgrown with tall weeds and scrub growth, was a half ruined hut. It was doubtless the relic of some fisherman who had once used the island as headquarters. But it had, apparently, long lapsed into disuse.
Hardly had they spied it before Roy made another discovery. Drawn up in a miniature cove not far from the hut was a trim and trig white motor boat, seemingly, from her long narrow shape and powerful engines, capable of great speed.
Here was a discovery! A motor boat meant gasolene and companionship.
With a soft cry of joy Peggy was dashing forward toward the hut, from which they could now hear proceeding the hum of human voices, when Roy suddenly checked her. From the doorway there had suddenly issued the figure of Morgan, the Bancrofts' butler. He gazed about him with a look of half alarmed suspicion on his flabby face. The young aviators instinctively crouched back behind a screen of green brush. They felt a suddenly aroused premonition that everything was not as it should be.
"H'its nothink," said Morgan, addressing someone within the hut, after he had gazed about a little more without seeing anything to further alarm his suspicions.