"I wonder what makes it hold together? It
ought to disintegrate."
"Dis what?" asked Billy.
"Disintegrate--that's Latin for falling to pieces."
"Maybe the roots hold it together," said Roland.
"It ought to dissolve," said Townsend. "This land doesn't seem to be
soluble in water. The coast all around ought to wash away. There is
something mysterious here. This island is as solid as a pancake; I
don't understand it. By all the rules of the game there shouldn't be
anything left here but the tree by this evening. There doesn't seem to
be any process of erosion."
"What will we do If the island washes away from under us?" asked the
boy they called Brownie. "The tree'll fall over sideways, won't it? I
don't want to camp on an island that keeps getting smaller all the
time. It's bad enough to have a tent shrink after a rain, but _an
island_!"
"I think this island is warranted not to shrink," said Townsend.
"Warranted nothing," said Billy; "look how muddy the water is all
around it. It'll be about as big as a fifty cent piece by midnight.
The river is eating it all away."
"Speaking of eating," said Townsend, "here comes the discoverer."
The discoverer and his companion were indeed approaching and apparently
they had sacked the town of Bridgeboro. Their gallant barque labored
under a veritable mountain of miscellaneous paraphernalia and out of
the pile projected a long bar with a device on the end of it which
glinted red and green in the sunshine.
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