"Before we do anything else at all," said Captain Aleck, "we must have something more to eat. Do you feel strong enough to help us, Katy?"
"Oh, yes, indeed. I've got quite rid of my foolish weakness."
"That's good. Let us know if we can help you."
Nobody felt in the mood for talking, and Jim really took a nap between the rock and the fire. Though the air was still cold, the sunshine was bright, and under the lee of the little cliff it was very comfortable; but poor Katy had hard work to keep her fingers from almost freezing. What she made was chocolate, fried bacon, and "griddle" cakes, the last cooked in the skillet, and consuming every bit of buckwheat flour and a good share of the sugar. When the meal had been eaten to the last scrap, and everybody had grown wide awake and cheerful, Aleck rapped on a box, and made a speech:
"Attention, ladies and gentlemen! Though none of us have said much about it, you all know well enough that we're in a regular scrape, and the sooner we discover how we're to get out of it the better. Now, I am going to propose a plan, and if any of you don't like it you can say so."
"We'll do whatever you say," exclaimed Tug.
"But I don't want to say till we've talked it over. I rather think we're on a small island a good many miles from land. I judge so from what I know of the chart of the lake, and what I can guess of where we drifted on that ice-floe. If so, I do not think anybody lives here, or ever comes here in winter."
"Regular desert island!" Jim was heard to mutter, in a tone that showed his mind busy with the romantic memory of Robinson Crusoe.
"The first thing to do is to find out whether this is so or not. Now I propose that Jim and Katy should stay here—"
"Oh, no, no," Katy interrupted, in an eager appeal. "Those dreadful dogs might come back, and Jimmy is so little! I want you to stay with me, or else let me go with you."