“Good!” cried Watson eagerly.
“Why ‘good’?” Guy inquired.
“Because they couldn’t have lived here that long without food and some way to keep warm. That means they can help us.”
This prospect made Guy feel so cheerful that he indulged in a mischievous reply.
“You ought to be a detective,” he said. The boy had hitherto given Watson no hint that he had discovered his occupation.
“What makes you say that?” inquired the operative, looking keenly at his young friend.
“The way you figure things out. You’d make a good secret service man.”
“I wonder how we happened to miss this landing place last night, and how the rescue steamer, which must have had a searchlight, failed to see the Eskimos,” one of the men remarked.
“It was dark and we didn’t come this way,” replied Watson. “We started farther toward the eastern end of the iceberg. I haven’t any doubt that the rescue steamer has been this way and picked up the boats and rafts without seeing the Eskimos.”
“Probably they slept late,” suggested Prof. Anderson. “They usually do, especially if they’ve had enough to eat.”