Danny Dunn on a Desert Island Read Online Free PDF Page A

for it. We may have a long way to paddle.”
    There were paddles stowed in the bottom of the raft, and each of them seized one. They had to reach out over the inflated sides of the raft to touch the water, so that paddling was an awkward job. Joe and Danny took the front, and the Professor and Dr. Grimes, with their longer arms and stronger strokes, the rear. It took them a little while to get the rhythm and dip their paddles in unison. Danny called out the stroke like a coxswain.
    After an hour they could see the loom of the land. Another hour of hot, continuous labor brought them close enough to make out that it was a large island towering up to a peak in the center. They could see the white foam of breakers at the foot of the cliffs, and they began paddling their little craft along the coastline while still some distance away.
    â€œThere. That looks like a beach where we can land,” Joe said.
    They all saw the white gleam of sand among the reddish-brown rocks. They were dripping with sweat, but the harder they paddled, the slower they seemed to go. The tide was against them. They struggled on, until they drew near the arms of a bay that sheltered the little beach.
    â€œWhen we get into that cove, the waves will carry us the rest of the way,” Dr. Grimes panted.
    â€œIf they don’t dash us against the rocks,” cautioned the Professor. “Be ready to steer—”
    A point of jagged stone stuck up out of the water a few yards ahead. Even as he spoke, the crest of a great comber rushed them straight for it.
    For an instant it seemed that they would be hurled upon it. Both Danny and Joe thrust out their paddles. The raft almost capsized; there was a jarring thump, but the paddles held firm and they heaved themselves past the rock.
    The next wave carried them almost to the beach. The boys scrambled overboard into the surf, and pulled the raft up on the sand.
    â€œWhew! Solid ground!” said Danny.
    Joe knelt down and kissed the beach. “I always hated sand in my mouth before,” he said, “but now—I love you, island.”
    The Professor, shading his eyes with his hand, was peering about. The other three, falling silent, turned to look, too.
    They stood on a small crescent-shaped beach, no more than fifty paces long and perhaps ten wide. On either side of them two arms of jumbled reddish blocks of stone stretched down to the water. Beyond were steep cliffs, rising fifteen or twenty feet straight out of the water to ledges where a few plants had seized a foothold. Inland, where the beach ended, thorny trees and cactus grew among the rocks, and farther on, a regular jungle of dark, dense trees began. The ground sloped sharply upward and in the distance, among masses of foliage, a single mountain peak rose, bare and menacing.
    From the jungle came the whistles and calls of unfamiliar birds, and nearer at hand, among the rocks, great lizards with spiky crests scuttled away. A huge turtle, large enough for Danny to sit on, lumbered swiftly down to the sea, plunged in like a barge and disappeared.
    In the face of that peaceful but utterly strange scene, the four travelers drew closer together.
    â€œWonder where we are?” Joe said at last.
    â€œAt a guess,” said Dr. Grimes, “I would say we were somewhere in or near the Galapagos Islands.”
    â€œYou’re probably right,” the Professor agreed. “If our plane was blown westward, and our raft was carried still farther westward on the current, the Galapagos Islands would be the likeliest land. They are chiefly volcanic islands, and this appears to be so. Furthermore, those lizards—iguanas, I believe—and those thorny trees are quite typical of the Galapagos Islands.”
    â€œThen we are on, or near, the equator,” Dr. Grimes said.
    â€œYes. Anywhere from six to eight hundred miles from the mainland. That is, if this is really one of the Galapagos.”
    They picked up the precious