“I’ve heard that,� said Jack, “but these blonde esquimaux, did the captain figure that they descended from the old Norsemen?�
“He didn’t know nothing about that,� was Cap’n Toby’s reply, “but it sounds reasonable when you come ter think of it.�
“What’s puzzling me is how we are to get to the top of that plateau,� said Jack, after a few minutes.
Uncle Toby drew out his map. He studied it for a minute. Then his face cleared.
“That stuck me, too, for a minute,� he said. “Nothing but a fly could scale those cliffs. But see here, the map shows that on the other side there is a sort of natural rock bridge connecting Cedar Mountain, as we might call it, with the rest of the island.�
“That’s so,� said Jack, “well, let’s go round and take a look.�
It was a tortuous path they had to follow, avoiding big boulders and huge rocks that were strewn about as though titans had been playing marbles with them. But at last they worked round to the other side of Cedar Mountain, as Uncle Toby had christened it.
Then a simultaneous cry of dismay broke from the lips of the entire party.
The rock bridge was gone!
The jagged edges where it had once spanned a deep gulch could be seen, but either the disintegration of the rock or some convulsion of nature had destroyed it. Cedar Mountain, with its steeply sloping, unsurmountable sides, was cut off from the rest of the island. It was, in fact, an unattainable island within an island.