The
place was almost entirely deserted. Madge's chase through the street,
her automobile accident, her conversation with Tom, and their return
had occupied nearly three-quarters of an hour.

When first they came ashore, Phil, Lillian and Eleanor had waited
patiently for the return of their companion. Five minutes passed, then
ten, soon fifteen. The girls were thinking of their fathers and mothers
and the telegrams that should be sent.

At last Phil turned to Lieutenant Lawton. "Lieutenant Jimmy, won't you
take me to the nearest telegraph station?" she demanded. "I am sorry
not to wait for Madge and Tom, but I must telegraph to my father."

Lillian and Eleanor were in the same state of mind. They also went
along with Lieutenant Lawton. It was arranged that Miss Jenny Ann and
Jeff should wait for the truant. They would then bring Madge and Tom to
the hotel at Portsmouth where they arranged to have dinner.

Miss Jones and Jeff lingered in the same place for half an hour. Miss
Jenny Ann then concluded to walk up the river bank to the square to
inquire if an accident had happened to the run-away. She must have been
in the square when Madge and Tom passed without seeing her. A few
minutes later Miss Jenny Ann concluded to go on up to the hotel, where
the other girls were expecting her. She thought that Tom and Madge must
have met the rest of the party and gone on to the hotel with them. She
would find them there.

Tom and Madge searched everywhere along the wharf. They stopped half a
dozen people to inquire for a party of four women and two men. No one
had seen any such group.

"Does everyone in the houseboat crowd look as well as you do?" asked
Tom, as they hurried along the street. "If they do, you ought to be
ashamed of yourselves. Here we have been grieving ourselves to death,
believing you were lost, and you have been having the jolliest kind of
a lark on a little Robinson Crusoe island. You watch me go duck
shooting there some day."

But after half an hour of vain inquiry for her friends Madge grew
impatient.

"I don't see why the girls didn't wait for me. They went away without
letting me know where they were going," she scolded. "Won't you please
take me to your mother, Tom? I suppose Miss Jenny Ann will come to Old
Point some time to-night."

There had been no plan made, before Madge went away, for spending the
night in Portsmouth.

Tom was only too happy to be the little captain's escort. He liked to