“O, there must be a settlement somewhere about. We can’t see it yet.”
“There certainly must be people, for there is the smoke.”
“The settlement is farther back; away from the shore.”
“Yes, or perhaps behind that headland. I dare say there’s a harbor there, and a fishing settlement. This may be some solitary house.”
“Solitary or not, it’s all the same to us. It shows us that we have come near to human beings again.”
A straight course towards the place where the smoke arose would have drawn them into rough water; so they hugged the shore, and followed its curve, in order to avoid the danger. For a time the smoke was concealed from view; but at length, as they went on, it came into sight again, and appeared twice as near as when they had first seen it. Here they saw a beach, which ran away for a long distance; and they noticed now that the smoke itself seemed to rise from a point on the beach about a mile away.
“That’s queer,” said Tom. “The smoke can’t be from a house at all.”
“No, some one has been making a fire on the beach. But it’s all the same. It shows that people are living hereabouts, and that’s all we want.”
“Well, we’ll soon know.”
“Tom!”