“Well, you’d better have some breakfast,” said Merritt, after he and the captain had exchanged greetings, “then we can go ahead and notify the others and institute a thorough search.”

“That’s the stuff, my boy,” agreed the veteran.  “Overhaul ship from bilge ter royals, and if not found, then take a cruise in search uv.”

Rob ate his meal with small appetite, but the captain, urging on his young companion the necessity of “filling his hold,” devoured prodigious quantities of food, and then, arising, suggested that the time had come to “pipe all hands aft and read orders.”

The boys had been so busy about their morning tasks that fortunately none of them, except Tubby, whom Merritt had told of the disappearance, had found time to notice Rob’s return or ask questions; so that when he announced to them that Joe Digby was missing it came as a stunning shock.

“Now, boys,” said Rob, after he had communicated the full details, so far as he knew them, of the circumstances of the disappearance, “there is only one thing to do, and that is turn this island inside out.  It won’t take long, but I want it done thoroughly.  Don’t leave a stone unturned.  If after a painstaking search we find nothing on the island, we’ll know we have to look elsewhere.  You are all fairly good woodsmen by this time, and can trail by signs as effectively as first-class scouts.  Use your eyes, and good luck.”

Merritt at once assigned searching parties, he and Rob and Tubby taking the center of the island and the others being detailed to search along the shores in two separate squads for any trace of their missing comrade.

“Call me a lubber if this ain’t the most mystifyin’ thing I’ve run my bow into since the Two Janes, uv Boston, brig, lost her bearings in a fog and fetched up off Iceland,” declared the captain, who had elected to accompany the three leaders of the Patrol.  “But drown or swim, sail or sink, we’ll find that kid if he’s on deck.”

The searching parties construed this speech as a sort of valedictory to them as, indeed, the captain intended it—­and greeted it with a cheer.

“The first scout that finds a trace of Joe is to light the four ‘smokes’, meaning come to council,” was Rob’s last order.  “Light them on as prominent a place as you can find and we will all meet in camp to hear the news.”

The searching parties at once separated, one striking off to the right, the other to the left and the three young leaders and their grizzled friend making a dead set for the center of the island.

If Joe Digby was to be found, the look of determination on the face of each scout showed that it would not be the fault of his young comrades if he were not.

CHAPTER XIX

SAM REBELS

In the meantime on a small island in the Upper Inlet a strange conference was taking place.  Three youths whom our readers will recognize as Jack Curtiss, Bill Bender and Sam Redding; were in earnest consultation with the unkempt and unsavory individual whom we know as Hank Handcraft, the beach-comber.