"He
has only to lead and I'll follow. Now that we've met him I feel that
life without the discoverer would not be worth living. I'm glad that
next week is Easter vacation, because we couldn't think of school and
the discoverer at the same time. He's more than a scout, he's an
institution.
"Do you know, Charlie, I think we're moving? We were almost opposite
that old railroad car a few minutes ago. Either Bridgeboro is going
down or we're going up. Do you feel the climate changing? You don't
suppose this island is going to go up the river again and join old
Trimmer's orchard, do you?"
"Maybe it's homesick," said a boy they called Brownie.
"I hope the discoverer will discover it," said Billy.
"We'd better scatter something in our trail," said Townsend soberly,
"so that he can follow. I think that's the regulation thing for scouts
to do, isn't it?"
He had been whittling a stick and now with a sober look he began
throwing the chips into the water as if to indicate the path of the
departing island. "That's what you call blazing a trail," he said; "if
he's a scout he can follow."
The little island was now moving slowly upstream by the incoming tide.
It caught on the flats, performed a slow pirouette like some drowsy
toe-dancer or exhausted merry-go-round, then extricated itself and
floated majestically in the channel till the little apple tree became
involved with the foliage along shore.
"Do you know this seems like a very funny kind of an island to me?"
Townsend Ripley drawled.
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