"Strike out through yon woods. It can't be long before we get to some house or other," declared Sandy stoutly.
With a last glance at the "bridge" that had served them so well in what had seemed an insurmountable difficulty, the boys pushed forward, making their way through country very much like that they had traversed before they came to the cave and an adventure which had come near costing them dearly.
"Say, this brush is as thick as a fog on Long Island Sound," vociferated Jack, as the two lads pushed perspiringly forward through dense undergrowth, interspersed by huge tree trunks whose tops towered high above.
"But we've got to keep on going," remonstrated Sandy, "reminds me of that yarn of the chap who said he'd an ancestor who fought in the revolutionary war on the British side. They asked him what his ancestor did, and the chap said that he had a drum and kept on beating it."
"Hum! that's what we've got to do, 'keep on beating it,'" was Jack's comment on the perennially cheerful Sandy's anecdote.
On and on they pushed, from time to time encountering small clearings, and then again plunging into thick woods. The sun grew higher and it grew hotter, but neither of the lads gave a sign of the fatigue that he felt. But their clothes were dripping wet, as well as torn by the rough going they encountered.
At last Jack sat down on a big log on the edge of a particularly dense bit of woodland.
"Tuckered out, mon?" inquired Sandy.
"No, far from it. I could keep on for quite a while, but—but—say, Sandy, I wonder where on earth we are, anyway. Is this an island, or the mainland, or the United States or Canada, or what?"
"Blessed if I know," was the frank response, "our only plan is to keep plugging along till we find out. If it's an island it must be a big one, or we would have come to the other side of it by this time."