We could get in there with the dory, Pitch. We could slide her in alongside the big rock just after a wave has struck, then pull her up onto the smaller rock, directly behind the big one, so we’d have her to get away on.”

“It sounds too dangerous,” Pitch said thoughtfully.

“But Pitch, what else can we do? And if we’re careful it shouldn’t be dangerous.”

“I don’t know, Steve,” Pitch began. “There may be an easier way farther on. We’d better go all the way around the island first.”

“Okay,” Steve said dismally, “but I doubt that we’ll find anything else. If there was an easier way of getting onto this part of the island, it would have been discovered long ago.”

“I don’t think anyone has ever looked before,” Pitch replied insistently. “We wouldn’t have either if we hadn’t seen the horse last night,” he reminded Steve.

“Yes, I guess you’re right,” Steve agreed. But as the launch pulled still farther away from shore, he continued looking back at the waves striking the dark, greenish rock.

They were well out of danger from submerged rocks when Pitch turned to Steve, saying, “We’ll go around to the other side of the island now, and if we find no other way, we’ll come back in the dory as you suggested, Steve.”

As they rounded the tip of Azul Island, the wind whipped into their faces and the launch dipped deeply into a far heavier sea.

Steve said, “It’s worse here, Pitch. We wouldn’t have a chance of getting in. The wind is driving the waves too hard against the walls on this side.”

Pitch nodded grimly as the launch was tossed heavily about on the rough sea. “You’re right, Steve, we’d better go back.”

“For the dory?” Steve asked quickly.

“For the dory,” Pitch repeated solemnly.

THE SEARCH

5

Two hours later, after having taken the launch back to the pier, they returned in the dory to the large green rock they had seen earlier. They had broken camp, and now their backpacks, along with several coils of rope and Pitch’s pick and shovel, lay at the bottom of the dory as the small boat lightly rode the high swells.

“Perhaps it was silly to bring all this gear along,” Pitch said. He was sitting beside Steve, both pulling hard on their oars. “Even if we’re able to reach shore, we may not find a way up the sides, you know.”

“But if we do,” Steve said, “we’ll be glad to have everything with us. It’s too long a row to go back for our gear.”

The dory fell swiftly into a deep trough, then rose high with the next swell. Steve saw that they were nearing the large rock, and his face became set.

Pitch said warningly, “Careful now, Steve.”