“Hear! hear!  Frank’s already showing signs of becoming a real old salt.  Look there, fellows!  Oh! it’s gone, now!” cried Jerry, pointing.

“I had just a glimpse of it.  That was land, all right, Jerry; and perhaps we’d better alter our course a bit now, heading due east so as to skirt along about this distance out.”

So saying, Frank gave the wheel a little whirl, and the motor-boat, in response, curved gracefully a few points to the starboard.

“Don’t she run like a duck?” said Bluff enthusiastically.

“There’s the land again, boys!  No question but what the fog is being driven off by the wind,” remarked Frank.

They could see the shore from time to time, and every one realized that the enshrouding curtain was fast vanishing.

“But, my! isn’t it getting rough?” exclaimed Will.

His remark caused the others to look at the speaker.

Frank needed only one glance to tell him the story.  Will was already beginning to feel the dreadful nausea of seasickness.  The boys were accustomed to spending much time on the water, in their canoes, but little Lake Camalot, at home, and the big Mexican Gulf, were two entirely separate affairs.  Indeed, there was only one among them who did not experience at least a trifling indisposition before this first day’s voyaging on the salt water was done, and that was Frank himself.

When the fog had entirely vanished the scene was quite picturesque, with the shore and its palmetto trees standing out beyond the heaving billows; but, alack and alas! the artist of the expedition, for once in his life, seemed not to care a picayune whether he ever took another snapshot again or not.

Even Bluff’s raillery failed to enthuse him, and the look he cast toward the shore was most pitiful and woebegone.

Seeing this, Frank took pity on his sick chum.

“Hand me that camera, Bluff; and you, Jerry, grab hold of this wheel here.  Keep her just as we are, and dodge the big waves as they come, or else we’ll all get a beautiful ducking.”

Saying this, Frank waited until a good chance came, and then snapped off a couple of views of the turbulent scene.

“Thank you, Frank, for I couldn’t have stood up to do it, for a kingdom.  I reckon I’ll never forget this experience, and every time I see those pictures I’ll have a qualm.  Oh!  I feel so sick, fellows!” wailed Will.

They laid him, groaning, on a blanket, under the protecting hood.  No one cared to stay with him more than a minute, for, truth to tell, neither Jerry nor Bluff were in a condition to say how long it might be before they would be feeling just as badly as their chum.  Fresh air was invaluable under such circumstances.

Frank, as they boomed along in this boisterous manner, was watching the shore.  He expected at any time, now, to discover signs of the refuge which he had mentioned to the others, though it would require sharp eyesight to distinguish the island from the background of shore line.