Down the narrowing river rowed our rescuing crew, and as they rowed the river narrowed.  Soon the lantern light on the island was abreast of them, some forty or fifty feet distant.

“Hello, over there,” called Warde.

“I’m pretty well,” called Pee-wee.

“What are we going to do?” asked Townsend.  “The tide has beat us to it.  He’s safe enough.”

“Oh, he couldn’t be safer,” said Warde.  “Our name is mud.  All our rowing for nothing.”

“How about the eats over there, Kid?” Warde called.

“They’re all right,” called Pee-wee, “only the ice cream is starting to melt.  I stuck my finger in through the ice and the cream is kind of oozing out.  Maybe I better eat it, hey?  It won’t hold out till the tide comes in.  I ate a sandwich and that made me thirsty and I didn’t want to be drinking the lemonade so I ate a piece of ice out of the freezer and that made me more thirsty so I drank some lemonade anyway and that made me hungry again and I’m going to eat a sardine sandwich only I’m afraid that’ll make me thirsty and——­”

“This is horrible,” said Townsend; “it’s like an endless chain.  Where will the end be?”

“Do you think it would be all right for me to eat some chicken salad?” Pee-wee shouted.  “The tide won’t be high enough to float this island for two hours.”

“Don’t!” called Warde, stopping up his ears.  “Have a heart.”

“Have a what?” called Pee-wee.

“Have a doughnut,” shouted Roy.

“All right,” called Pee-wee.  “There’s some dandy cheese here in a kind of a little jar—­yum—­yum!”

“Don’t!” shrieked Warde.

“Doughnut?” called Pee-wee.

“No, I said ’don’t’,” called Warde.  “You’ll have me eating one of the oarlocks in a minute.”

Soon a faint chugging could be heard; it ceased, presumably at the Skybrow lawn, then started again.  Nearer and nearer it came until presently the racing boat of Dashway Speeder came to a stop alongside them.  Half a dozen girls and as many hungry male guests of the party were in it clamoring for news.

“This is terrible!” said Minerva.  “I never dreamed of such a thing as this.  Why, he’s marooned!”

“I’m all safe,” shouted Pee-wee, “don’t you worry.”

“Safe!  I should think he is,” said Dora.  “If he had the British navy all around him he couldn’t be safer.”

“The world is at his feet,” said Townsend.

“You mean at his mouth,” said Roy.

“I never heard of such a thing in all my born days,” said Margaret.

“He’s cornered the food market,” said another hungry guest.

“For goodness’ sake turn your search-light on him, Dashway,” said Minerva, “and let’s see what he looks like.  This is simply tragic.”

Dashway Speeder turned the search-light of his launch across the fiats and there amid the surrounding mud, still bubbling from the effects of the departing tide, was presented a scene like unto a picture on a movie screen.  There, bathed in light amid the surrounding gloom, like a film star in a disk of brightness, sat Scout Harris upon a grocery box surrounded by fallen sandwiches and with a goodly bowl securely held between his diminutive knees.  It was a superb and mouth-watering close-up, to use the film phrase.