The girls helped the sailors transport their luggage from the launch to the clearing on the cliff, and Zan remarked: "I see you brought the aqua-plane."
"Bet your life! Betsy would have sent us back for it had we forgotten to bring it," laughed Fred, as he climbed the sandy side of the cliff.
Once on top where he found the Guide and other girls making camp, he said: "Where are the other boys? Fishing?"
"No, we never met each other as planned. I think they are camping at some other spot," said Zan.
"They'll hunt us up quick enough when it's time for supper. You see we brought the hampers," laughed Jane.
Fred looked serious, however. "We had a dreadful time rounding the Island where the sea sweeps in through the Narrows. It was all we could do to stem the current. Even as it was, we had to go way out of our road to avoid the swift tide."
"You don't think anything could have happened to them, do you?" cried Zan, anxiously.
"I shouldn't wonder but what they have been over-turned," now added Eleanor, with her pessimistic propensity.
"Not that at all, girls, only they may have been swept so far out of their course that paddles couldn't help them along very fast. Then they may have to camp wherever they are," said Fred.
"All the same, you know as well as I do, that lots of folks are drowned off this shore--'specially boys. You can read about a death that way every day!" persisted Eleanor.
"Then they didn't know how to swim like Fiji and Jack do. Why, they're regular water-rats!" replied Fred, optimistically.
"Swimming won't help much if they have cramps! That sinks you like lead!" countered Eleanor again.
Miss Miller heard the whole conversation and also saw Zan and Jane turn pale when they first thought of danger to their brothers. Until this time they thought it a great joke that they had found such a fine site and were camping with all the foodstuff.
At Eleanor's first exclamation the Guide had frowned, for her religion was one of practical common sense and cheerful optimism. She looked about for something to interest the girls and, at the same time, stop Eleanor from talking, so when she heard the last rejoinder to Fred's attempts at encouraging Zan and Jane, she called to Eleanor: