He had hardly made the remark when he started violently. His resemblance to Robinson Crusoe was even closer than he had thought.
On the close-packed sand of the beach were the footprints of a man!
There was somebody else on the island then. For a minute he half suspected that one of the landing party, who had come ashore for water, might have made the tracks. But this solution of the matter was negatived by the fact that they had landed on the other side of the island, and had been too busy to roam about.
Who could this man be? Captain Carson had told him the island was uninhabited. Certainly nobody with the landing party had noticed any human being on it or they would have been sure to have mentioned it.
Raynor began to feel uncomfortable. He had no weapon, and the strange man might be hostile. Certainly he must be an out of the ordinary individual to live on such a forsaken island. And why had he not appeared when the schooner anchored?
“Maybe he is some desperate criminal hiding here from the law,� mused Raynor. “In that case my life will be in danger.�
He traced the footsteps till they became lost in loose sand. But as nearly as he could judge, the man had walked along the beach, and then turned inland.
Raynor felt badly shaken by his discovery. It was not pleasant to contemplate sharing an island with a man who might prove a dangerous enemy. However, there was no help for it, The Polly Ann was sinking and the island was his only refuge.
He looked about him. Back of the beach the island shores sloped upward abruptly, shutting out any view of the interior. Gnarled shrubs and bushes grew among the rocks. They were twisted into all sorts of grotesque shapes by the rigors of the Arctic winds. From the beach he could see the hull of the ill-fated Polly Ann.
The schooner had canted over more but did not appear to have sunk any lower in the water. “If only she’d keep afloat I’d go right back to her,� muttered Raynor.