Vi and Margy shouted to him that he would be drowned;
and Laddie said something more about sharks. But their older brother
paid little attention to them.
He had tied the cover down over the lifeboat again and he would not look
toward it, not even when Rose asked him what the matter was and if he
was going to leave all five of the castaways on the raft to starve and
be thirsty until luncheon time.
"I guess this isn't a very good place to play castaway, after all," said
Russ gravely. "And, anyway," he added, with sudden animation, "there's
the man with the gong. We'll have to run down and get cleaned up before
we go to the table."
"Dear me!" complained Laddie, "we never can have any fun. We always have
to stop and eat or go to bed, or something. Even on this ship we have
to."
Laddie thought that the most important thing in the world was play. Rose
watched Russ with a puzzled look. She felt that something had happened
that her brother did not want to talk about. Russ had a secret.
The latter did not even look again at the lifeboat as the little party
passed it on the way to the staterooms. But Russ Bunker's mind was fixed
upon that boat and what he had seen in it, just the same. He really
could not decide what to do. He was very much puzzled.
Even his mother and father noticed that Russ was rather silent at the
lunch table; but he said he was all right.
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