It is not to be supposed, however, that they had given up all hope, or that at any time they had allowed themselves to indulge in despondency. Rob especially, although serious and quiet, all the time was thinking over a plan. This, one day, he proposed to the others.
“I have resolved,” said he, “that if you other boys agree, we will start for home just one month from to-day.”
They sat looking at him in silence for some time.
“How do you mean?” asked Jesse, his eyes lighting up, for he was the one who seemed most to feel homesickness.
“I mean to start back to Kadiak, where we came from!”
“Yes, and how can we tell which way Kadiak is?” inquired John.
“I’ll tell you how,” said Rob. “We will travel, of course, in our dory, which will carry our camp outfit and food enough to last for a great many days, even if we should prove unable to take any codfish or salmon along the coast.”
“But which way would we go?” insisted John.
“The opposite of the way we came,” smiled Rob. “A tide brought us into this bay. The same tide on the turn would carry us out of the bay. To be sure, the wind may have had much to do with our direction, but it is only fair to suppose that if we came down the east coast of Kadiak on an ebb we would go up that same coast on the flood. At least, if we could do no better, we would be leaving a place where no word seems apt to get to us.”
“It would be a risky voyage,” said Jesse. “I didn’t like it out there on the open sea!”