is Vincent! It is! It is!"

And she was right. A moment later, as they dragged the all but senseless
form from the seaplane, they recognized him at once as the millionaire's
son.

He had drifted in the benumbing water so long that had they been delayed
for another hour they would have found nothing more than a corpse
awaiting them.

As Curlie tore Vincent's sodden outer garments from him he saw the girl
carefully unrolling the blankets and oiled covering from about her. He
did not protest. To him the thought of seeing this girl half drowned and
chilled through by the spray which even now at times dashed over the
raft, was heartbreaking, but he knew it was necessary if the life of her
brother was to be saved.

"Brave girl!" he murmured as he wrapped Vincent in the coverings and
passed him on to the skipper.

"And now," he said, "the time has come to think of other things. I
believe the waves have sufficiently subsided to enable us to dare it."

He fumbled once more at the raft, at last to bring up a long,
post-shaped affair.

"More rations," murmured Joe, swallowing his last bite of hardtack; "a
regular commissary. But why get them out at this time?"

"You wait," smiled Curlie.

He was standing up. After telling Joe to steady him, he began tearing
away at the upper end of the mysterious package. In a moment, he took
out some limp, rubber affairs.

"Toy balloons," jeered Joe.

"Something like that," Curlie smiled.

He next brought out a small brass retort and a tiny spirit lamp.

"Lucky our matches are dry," he murmured, after unwrapping some oiled
cloth and lighting the spirit lamp with one of the matches inclosed.

After firmly tying the end of a toy balloon over the mouth of the retort
he held the spirit lamp beneath the bowl of the retort. At once the
balloon began to expand.

"Chemicals already in the retort," he explained.

When the balloon was sufficiently inflated, he quickly tied it at the
mouth, then began inflating another.

"The gas is very buoyant," he explained. "Hold that," he said as he
passed the string to the engineer.

"There's enough," he said quietly when the third had been filled.

He next drew forth some shiny fine copper wire coiled about some round,
insulated bars.

When he had fastened the balloons to one end of the bars, he attached a
strong cord to the balloons, then allowed them to rise, at the same time
paying out the strands of copper wire.

"Not very heavy wire f