"Not a soul that I could see," Tug said. "I allow they come here in summer, though, for the trees have been cut down, and there's a rough little shanty on the other side."
"Could we live in it?"
"Didn't go inside; don't know. It's half full of snow. Better than no shelter at all, I suppose. It ain't far off. Suppose you all go over there and look at it—Jim can show you where it is—while I guard the grub against those pesky dogs. I don't wonder the brutes are savage, for I don't see how they could get anything to eat here."
When the three had left the rocks at the beach, under Jim's guidance, they found themselves in a brushy wood consisting largely of hemlocks and pines, often closely matted together. A few minutes' walking carried them through this and up to a ridge of jagged limestone rocks, one point of which, a little distance off, stood up like a big monument. This ridge ran about east and west, and they had come up its southern side. Its northern face was very snowy, had few trees, and sloped down an eighth of a mile to the water.
At one place on this northern beach several great rocks rose from the water's edge, and among them stood a small grove of hemlocks and other trees. In that thicket, Jimmy told them, the old shanty was placed. They thought it must be very small, or else well stowed away, for they could see nothing of it. To get down to it was no easy task, for the crevices and holes in the rocky hillside had drifted full of snow, and they were continually sinking in where they had expected to stand firm, or finding a solid rock ahead when they tried to flounder out. It was a chilled and ill-tempered trio that finally reached the beach, and sought the shelter of the thicket.
Now it became easier to understand why the hut had been invisible from above, for it was only a shanty propped up between two great rocks that helped to form its walls and support its roof. From the broken oars and many fragments of nets, the old corks and other rubbish lying about, they saw at once that it had been built by fishermen, who probably came there to spend the night now and then, or, perhaps, stayed a week or so at a time in the summer.
The door stood half open, and a snowdrift lay heaped upon the threshold. Edging their way in, they found that the roof and walls were tight, the little window unbroken, and several rough articles of furniture lying about. An old, rusty stove, one corner propped up on stones, and the pipe tumbled down, stood against the chimney of mud and sticks that was built up against one of the rocky walls.
"This is splendid!" Katy cried. "Just look at that dear old stove!"
"Yes, sis; I think we must move over here. But are you sure, Jim—how did you find out?—that this is an island, and not the mainland?"