Part 22 (1/2)

The girls were sober enough now as they looked at each other.

”But what makes you think we're going to have one, Paul?” asked Laura humbly.

”Because the air is so still and muggy,” Paul answered, then added with a wave of his hand out over the water: ”Look--do you see that?”

”That” was a faint, misty cloudlike vapor hanging so low that it seemed almost to touch the water. And suddenly the girls were conscious that their hair was wet and also their hands and their clothes.

”Goodness, we must be in it now!” said Vi looking wonderingly down at her damp skirt. ”Only it's so light you can't see it.”

”I'm afraid it won't be light very long,” said Paul grimly, as he swung _The Sh.e.l.ling_ around and headed back the way they had come.

”What are you going to do?” asked Laura, still more humbly, for she now was beginning to think that she was to blame for the fix they were in--if indeed it were a fix.

”I'm going to get back to land as soon as I can,” Paul answered her.

”Before this fog closes down on us.”

”What would happen, Paul?” asked Billie softly. ”I mean if it should close down on us.”

”We'd be lost,” said Paul shortly, for by this time he was more than anxious. He was worried.

”Lost!” they repeated, and looked at each other wide-eyed.

”Well, you needn't look as if that was the end of the world,” said Teddy, trying to speak lightly. ”All we would have to do would be to keep on drifting around till the fog lifted. It's simple.”

”Yes, it's simple all right,” said Chet gloomily. ”If we don't run into anything.”

”Run into anything!” gasped Connie, while the other girls just stared.

”Oh, Paul, is there really any danger of that?”

”Of course,” said Paul impatiently, noticing that the fog was growing thicker and blacker every moment. ”There's always danger of running into something when you get yourself lost in a fog. And it's the little boat that gets the worst of it,” he added gloomily.

”Say, can't you try being cheerful for a change?” cried Teddy indignantly, for he had noticed how white Billie was getting and was trying his best to think of something to say that would make her laugh.

”There's no use of singing a funeral song yet, you know.”

”No, and there's no use in starting a dance, either,” retorted Paul, wondering how much longer he would be able to keep his course. ”We're in a mighty bad fix, and no harm can be done by everybody knowing it. I can't possibly get back to the island--or the mainland either--before this fog settles down upon us.”

It took a minute or two for this to sink in. There was no doubt about it.

He was telling them that in a few minutes they would be lost in this horrible fog. And that might mean--they s.h.i.+vered and turned dismayed faces to each other.

”I--oh, I'm awfully sorry,” wailed Laura. ”If I hadn't said what I did to Paul we might never have come.”

”Nonsense! that had nothing to do with it,” said Billie, putting a loyal arm about her chum. ”We would have come just the same.”

Then followed a waking nightmare for the boys and girls. In a few moments the fog settled down upon them in a thick impenetrable veil, so dense that, as Paul had said, you could almost have cut it.

It became impossible for Paul to steer, and all there was to do was to sit still and wait and hope for the best. Fog horns were sounding all about, some seeming so close that the girls fully expected to see some great shape loom up through the mist, bearing down upon them.