The wind kept the mosquitos off, allowing them to sleep with hatches and portholes open. The fog lifted in the morning and the wind died and the still water appeared in the red dawn like a river of lava. As Eliot was cooking breakfast, a shriek sent them all rushing outside, where they saw a great triangular raft of sawn logs bearing down on them, the tug behind it blowing its whistle, because Double Eagle’s stern, with the last turn of tide, had swung out into the channel. There was no time for anything except to haul on the anchor cable and pull the schooner out of the way, closer to the island. This was done, and just in time, the log boom swinging by so close they could have jumped onto it. Another shriek, the tug’s captain leaning out the wheelhouse window to shake his fist and tell them what he thought of their intelligence and the legitimacy of their ancestry. With the crisis past, they settled down to breakfast. Drew filled a saucer with condensed milk to feed Trajan and, after calling him several times, announced, in a tremulous voice, that the cat was missing. Nathaniel said he must have been terrified by the tug’s whistle and had hidden somewhere; but after they all four searched every possible sanctuary, even the bilges, the awful truth fell on them: Their mascot, who had sailed a thousand miles with them, weathering line squalls and fogs and a whole gale, had vanished without trace. He had probably leapt onto the log boom when the whistle blew the last time. Or he had jumped, in blind fear, into the water, to be swept off in the tideway. The thought of the little fellow, drowning alone, or riding that raft to an uncertain destination and fate, made them all desolate, Drew most of all.

“Nothing we can do,” Nathaniel said, with as much sympathy as he was capable of. “The tide’s serving, we’ve got to get a move on.”

They had just begun to raise sail when Eliot caught a sound coming from the island, a faint wail, he said.

“It’s him!” he cried. “He’s on the island! He must’ve jumped off and swum to it! Trajan! Trajan!”

Though the distance wasn’t great, Nathaniel didn’t see how it was possible for the cat to swim it; from what he knew of felines, they could not swim at all.

“Yes, they can!” Drew said, and then called the cat’s name. In a moment, they all heard the same strange, plaintive howl.

It took only a minute to lower the tender away’, with Eliot and Drew aboard.

“Take this,” Nathaniel said, handing down the L. C. Smith and a fistful of shells. “There’s gators and Christ knows what else around here.”