rude fashion, with strong
trailing vines from the forest. A smaller raft, as a sort of ferry,
was also made.

This occupied them all that day, and part of the next. In the
meanwhile, Tom continued to flash out his appeals for help, but no
answers came. The men cut down their rations, and when the two
ladies joked them on their lack of appetite, they said nothing. Tom
was glad that Mrs. Nestor did not renew her request to him to get
out the reserve food supply from what remained in the wreck of the
airship. Perhaps Mr. Nestor had hinted to her the real situation.

The large raft was towed out into a quiet bay of the island, and
anchored there by means of a heavy rock, attached to a rope. On
board were put cans of water, which were lashed fast, but no food
could be spared to stock the rude craft. All the castaways could
depend on, was to take with them, in the event of the island
beginning to sink, what rations they had left when the final shock
should come.

This done, they could only wait, and weary was that waiting. Tom
kept faithfully to his schedule, and his ear ached from the constant
pressure of the telephone receiver. He heard message after message
flash through space, and click on his instrument, but none of them
was in answer to his. On his face there came a grim and hopeless
look.

One afternoon, a week following the erection of the wireless
station, Mate Fordam came upon a number of turtles. He caught some,
by turning them over on their backs, and also located a number of
nests of eggs under the warm sands.

"This will be something to eat," he said, joyfully, and indeed the
turtles formed a welcome food supply. Some fish were caught, and
some clams were cast up by the tide, all of which eked out the
scanty food supply that remained. The two ladies suspected the truth
now and they, too, cut down their allowance.

Tom, who had been sitting with the men in their sleeping shack, that
evening, rose, as the hour of ten approached. It was time to send
out the last message of the night, and then he would lie down on an
improvised couch, with the telephone receiver clamped to his ear, to
wait, in the silence of the darkness, for the message saying that
help was on the way.

"Well, are you off?" asked Mr. Damon, kindly. "I wish some of us
could relieve you, Tom."

"Oh, I don't mind it," answered the lad "Perhaps the message may
come to-night."

Hardly had he spoken than there sounded the ominous rumble and