Precautions were not ceased, and the boats continued to comb out every open bay which could not be searched with the ship’s glasses. Finally they reached the mouth of Eagle Harbor, near the entrance to which the boats discovered yet another camp-fire, probably marking the limits of another day’s journey of the young voyagers.
“Plucky little dogs—plucky!” grumbled the captain. “They’re not old women like you, Hazlett! They can take care of themselves all right!”
The interpreter stepped up. “The old man says there’s a village at the head of this harbor,” he began. “Says there may be a few people living there, though most of them have likely gone to the fisheries. He thinks the village ought to be examined.”
“Go in with the boat, Mr. Cummings!” ordered Captain Stephens. “It’ll keep you overnight. As for me, I don’t dare risk the tide-rips between these rocks and that big island over there—which must be Ugak Island, I suspect. I’m going to drop back and go outside that island, and to-morrow I’ll meet you thirty miles up the coast. Comb out the bay! If the boys have left the village they’ve very likely sailed for the opposite point of this bay, and maybe you’ll get word of them at one place or the other.”
XXXIII
SAVED!
It was a night of anxiety and expectation on the Bennington, and, as the cutter swung at anchor north of the bold and dangerous point of Ugak Island, every one on board was astir at early dawn.
“Boat on the larboard bow, sir!” reported an ensign, soon after Captain Stephens was known to be awake in his cabin.