e to
the hot sun. It must have been years since she had been used, and Rob's
experienced eye saw that she would have sunk like a stone the instant
she was put in the water. It was a bitter blow to the lad, and for a
time he sank down on the sand, completely knocked out.

But after a time he rallied his spirits.

"After all," he mused, "there may be somebody living on the island and
that boat may be just an old one they have discarded. I'll dry my
clothes and then start out to investigate."

With the drying of his clothes, Rob made an alarming discovery. The food
he had taken was most of it reduced to pulp by its immersion, some
canned goods alone remaining edible.

"That makes it all the more urgent for me to find some aid," he said to
himself; "I don't think that bunch on the motor boat will trouble to
look for me. I guess they'd be glad to leave me here if this is a
deserted island. In that case, I might die here before aid came."

But thrusting all such thoughts as that aside, Rob determined to meet
the situation like a brave Scout.

"I won't give up till I'm at the last ditch," he said to himself with
determination, as he put on his clothes. "I'll fight it out to the end."

Somehow this resolution of his made the boy feel better. With renewed
courage he set out to explore the island. But he made the circuit of it
in vain. There was not a trace to be found of human habitation nor any
indication, except the stranded, sun-dried boat, that anyone but himself
had ever landed there.

So despondent did he feel over this discovery that had he possessed the
strength to do so, he would have swum back to the other island and
thrown himself on the mercy of his recent captors. But this was now out
of the question.

Unless he could find some way out of his dilemma, it looked as if he
would indeed be doomed to leave his bones on those sands. The thought
was a dreadful one, and although it was a warm, almost tropical day, the
boy shivered and cold sweat ran down his face.

If he were indeed to die there, nobody would ever know his fate, in all
probability. He had failed in his mission to recover the papers, too.
Altogether he felt in a very miserable frame of mind. It was in this
mood that, in order to keep his mind off his predicament, more than
anything else, he fell to examining the old boat again. There might be
some way to patch her up, he thought desperately, hoping against hope.

Suddenly he made a discovery tha