the sea.

They crept along a narrow shelf where a slip on some pebble might send
them crashing to death in the tumbled mass of ice below. They scaled
an all but perpendicular wall, to drag their sleeping-bag and the few
other belongings, which they had dared attempt to carry, after them by
the aid of a skin-rope. Then, after a few minutes' rest, they would
rise to climb again.

But at last, their efforts rewarded, they found themselves standing on
the edge of a snow-capped plateau. "Now," said Lucile, "if there are
any people living on the island, it won't be on top of it, but in some
sheltered cranny down by the shore where they are away from the
sweeping winds and where they can hunt and fish."

"But think what they may be like!" said Marian. "They may be savages
who have never seen a white man. We don't even know whether we are a
hundred miles from Bering Straits or five hundred. And neither of us
has ever been on an island in the Arctic Ocean!"

"That," said Lucile, "has nothing to do with it. We're on one now. We
can't very well go back to the ocean ice. We haven't any food. We
couldn't hide on this little island if we wished to. So the best thing
to do is to try to find the people, if there are any, and cast our lot
with them. I once heard a great bishop say that 'humanity is
everywhere very much the same.' We've just got to believe that and go
ahead."

Shouldering the sleeping-bag, and leaving to Marian the remaining
seal-oil in the skin-sack, the butcher knife, and the fishing outfit,
she marched steadily forward on a course which in time would enable
them to make the outer circle of the island.

"See those piles of stones?" Lucile said fifteen minutes later. "Those
did not just happen to be there. They were put there by men. See how
carefully they are piled. The piles look tall and slim. I have heard
a sea captain say that the natives of this coast, in very early days,
when there was warring among tribes, piled stones on high points like
this to make those who desired to attack them think they were men, and
that there were many warriors in the place."

"Then," said Marian, catching her breath at the thought, "there must be
people on this island."

"Not for sure," said Lucile. "The people who piled up those rocks
might merely have been living here temporarily, using this island as a
hunting station; and then, even if they were living here permanently,
famine and contagious diseases