Yellow dandelions dotted the greensward, purple violets peeped up through the overgrown grass, and a rusty tin can, memento of some prehistoric fisherman perhaps, lay near the shore.  Not even the geometrical perfection of the island detracted from its primitive and rugged beauty.

True, it had no bays or wooded coves where pirates might have lurked, and it was fickle to any one spot.  But wheresoever its wanton fancy took it the dying sunlight flickered down through the little tree and glazed the spotless blossoms so full of promise that clustered above the little band of hardy adventurers.

Before they had finished their repast—­a repast as strange and surprising as the island itself—­they had drifted half a mile upstream with the incoming tide.  Here the sturdy underpinning of the desert isle caught upon a tiny reef and the island swung slowly around like a sleepy carrousel and rested from its travels.

CHAPTER XVI

BEFORE THE PARTY

Meanwhile we must return to the mother country, to take note of important happenings there.  While our doughty explorers were eating their hunter’s stew in this strange land and sprawling beneath their tree in the gathering twilight surrounded by unknown perils, the gay Silver Fox Patrol returned from New York after a day spent in shopping and sightseeing.

They proceeded at once to their railroad car down by the river where they found the Ravens, who had just returned from a hike.  Soon the Elks, returning from an auto ride, joined their comrades and a lively discussion occurred.  It pertained to the lawn party to be given that evening at the home of Miss Minerva Skybrow of the Camp-fire Girls.

“What time do you have supper at your house?” Doc Carson asked Roy Blakeley.

“We have it about eight o’clock on Saturdays,” said Roy.  “My father’s playing golf.”

“Same here,” said Artie Van Arlen; “my father has to stay late so as to beat your father.”

“If he stays at the links long enough to do that you’ll never see him again,” said Roy.  “What time is this racket supposed to be, anyway?”

“Eight sharp,” said Grove Bronson.

“Are we going to go all separated together or all separated at once?” Roy asked.

“Positively,” said Warde Hollister.

“Positively what?” asked Connie Bennett.

“It’s all the same to me, only different,” said Roy.  “Only this is what I was thinking.  We all have supper at different times except Pee-wee and he has supper all the time.  As Abraham Lincoln said at the battle of Marne, ’Some people are half hungry all the time, some people are all hungry half the time, but Pee-wee is all hungry all the time.’  I wonder where he is anyway?”

“Down in Bennett’s having a soda, I guess,” said Westy Martin.

“Is he going to the party?” Tom Warner asked.