Page:Barbour--Lost island.djvu/28

 on 'em; and she don't tell. No, siree! she holds her secrets fast."

"But didn't the people on the island know?" the boy queried.

There was a comical look in the old man's eyes as he regarded his questioner.

"Say, sonny," he said, "you don't think there's trolley-cars runnin' and department stores on every little two-by-four dump in the South Seas!"

"I thought there might be a few natives," Dave suggested.

"Well, sometimes you find a bunch of them stoppin' on an island, but we didn't see anything livin' there except a few turtles and sea-birds that knew nothing and cared less about how the Hatteras got there. You never know what luck is comin' your way when you're a sailor. It might be our turn to get piled up on a rock after we leave here to-night at high water."

Somebody on deck called to the mariner. Dave, with a curious feeling, watched him clamber