"How could there be?" Mabel asked.
"Someone might have left it there, I suppose," said Gerald.
"But how would they have got off the island?"
"In another boat, of course," said Gerald; "come on." Downheartedly, and quite sure that there wasn't and couldn't be any boat, the four children started to explore the island. How often each one of them had dreamed of islands, how often wished to be stranded on one! Well, now they were. Reality is sometimes quite different from dreams, and not half so nice. It was worst of all for Mabel, whose shoes and stockings were far away on the mainland. The coarse grass and brambles were very cruel to bare legs and feet.
They stumbled through the wood to the edge of the water, but it was impossible to keep close to the edge of the island, the branches grew
