“Same here,” exclaimed Tom.

“I see,” Cliff grinned at them. “You two are—sort of—arm-chair adventurers. You like to have the thrills without the hardships. Just look at us!” he declared. “We couldn’t be deeper in adventure if we tried to dig our way in! Right in the midst of treasure-land! Stranded and deserted on the edge of an awful swamp—isn’t the Big Cypress Swamp north of us? Surely it is! Without food! Drenched and helpless. What more could you ask?”

“I see what you are aiming at,” Nicky grinned back. “We must take it as it comes and make the best of it.”

“That’s it,” Cliff agreed. “You know we’re not so badly off. Mr. Neale will come rowing along in the dinghy and then we’ll all crowd in and be rescued—what a story we’ll have to tell our grandchildren.”

They were compelled to laugh at his tone and his ludicrous words. It made them all feel better.

Meanwhile, Mr. Neale had reached Nelse’s place and been greeted by Pomp’ who assured him that he was welcome to wait until Mars’ Nelse came back with his canoe—having gone “off yonder,” Pomp’ said with a vague wave of his hand toward the Sound.

Waiting on the rude little dock, Mr. Neale caught sight of the _Treasure Belle_ standing away for an opening into bigger water. It astonished him and rendered him helpless to act! He knew that he could not hope to overtake her with his dinghy, and Pomp’ assured him that there was no faster boat within reach.

“I ’spect dat black man f’om Jamaica done got de skeer under his wool and run off wif de white chill’un,” he observed.

“No—he’s gone alone,” Mr. Neale stated. “I left the boys on the shore by the inlet.”

He leaped into the dinghy and began to row down the shore line; it was no time to wait for Nelse. He must see whether the boys were where he had left them or if they had managed to return, by swimming, before Sam got the boat under headway.

He was forced to conclude that they were either voluntarily going with Sam or that they were under some compulsion on the sloop. Certainly they were not on the shore!

He beached the dinghy and sat in it, considering. Where were his charges? Why had they let Sam get away if they had reached the sloop?

As a matter of fact, the chums were having an adventure they had 

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