"Ask him about getting something to eat," said Sandy. "Mon, but I'm famished."
Tom tried to convey this idea to the natives in speech, but it was plain they did not understand. Then he fell back on the sign language. Here he succeeded better. He pointed to his mouth and then rubbed his stomach, a sign understood from the Arctic Ocean to Statenland. The native grinned and gave over smoking a minute. He nodded his head.
"Bye'm bye," he said, "bye'm bye."
"Well, at least he understands that much English," cried Tom triumphantly. "I wish I could tell him to hurry up. 'Bye'm bye' might mean any time."
But in answer to further efforts, the native only nodded and smiled amiably. After a while, during which the boys strolled about disconsolately, the natives smoked their pipes out, and then began to talk in their guttural, grunting tongue. Of course, the boys could not understand what they were saying, but as well as they could judge the two men were coming to some sort of a decision. Suddenly they got to their feet and made off through the fog at a swift pace. The boys ran after them, shouting, but the Aleuts speedily vanished.
It was a pity that the boys could not know that the two natives, after a discussion, had decided to set off across the island to a fishing settlement for help. For it was Wolf Island on which the party had landed and the natives had only delayed to get a smoke before starting for aid. But of this the boys knew nothing.
Hour after hour they waited with despairing faces for the two Aleuts, whom they thought had basely deserted them. At length Tom reached a decision.
"Those fellows have left us. We'll leave them," he declared.
"How?" inquired Jack.