lt and get breath.

"I shouldn't wonder if we were the pioneers of this island," said Harry,
"for no one seems to have been through here before. How do you stand it,
young Smith, all right?"

"Well, it is not so easy as walking along Broadway in New York," rejoined
Jesse W., "but I can manage it, I guess."

"It strikes me that we are going down instead of up," observed Arthur,
"and we thought we would have to climb the hills we saw."

"You often have to go up and down two or three times in climbing a
mountain," said Jack. "It looks all up from a distance, but there are
often intervening valleys, which have to be crossed, and then you go up
again."

"This must be a pretty deep one, then," said Harry, "for we are going down
at a pretty steep incline now."

They pushed on, passing through many great masses of rock, and still going
down at a decided angle until at length they came out upon a bare, rocky
shore with huge masses of rock to the right and left, and beyond a line of
reefs over which the surf was dashing, all being white both beyond and
inside the reefs.

"We are on the other side of the island!" exclaimed Jack, "and we have not
climbed our hills at all or else they were so slight that we did not
notice them."

"I would not like to be in a vessel driven on this side of the island,"
said Percival. "See how the surf dashes over those reefs. You would go to
pieces in a short time."

"That may be the reason why there are no people on it," said Jack. "It is
not very big, I take it, and is probably difficult of access. We seem to
have come to it without knowing it, and if we had I don't believe we would
have gone near it."

They stood watching the surf, and taking in various parts of the shore,
seeing a great mass of rocks higher than those at hand, to the east of the
larger mass close in to land, and at length Jack suggested that they
return to the other side.

"We ought to be able to follow the path we made coming across," he said,
"and in any event, we know the general direction, and if we do go astray a
bit it won't matter."

They set out upon their return, and came out not far from where they had
started, finding Billy Manners and three or four of the boys on shore
waiting for them.

"We thought you might be along soon," said Billy. "Would you believe it,
they don't know what this island is after all, don't know the name of it,
I mean."

"How is that?" asked Harry. "Isn't it charted?"

"Yes, it