"I thought it was all up with me then," he said. "Before that I had met
this chap," and he nodded toward The Loon. "I thought he could help me,
and he promised to. I managed to speak to him on the quiet, and gave
him what money I had managed to hide away from those slave-drivers. He
went off, promising to bring help."
"And he tried, too," said Grace. "He helped us first, though." And she
told of getting the motor boat away from the manatee.
"Just to think!" cried Will. "There he was, talking to you girls all the
while, and me only a few miles away, though I was moved later."
"I--I'm sorry," spoke The Loon.
"Oh, you couldn't help it, Harry," voiced Betty, softly. "After all, it
came out all right, and you helped a lot."
"Indeed he did," agreed Tom Osborne. "Only for him Will and I might
still be prisoners."
Will related how he had broken from the shack shortly before the
rescuers reached the Everglade camp, and how, after much suffering,
having previously cut his foot, which made him lame, and wandering about
in the woods, he had made the raft and floated down the river. What
little food he had gave out, and he had fainted from weakness and
exposure just as the girls' boat came in sight.
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