It was a desperate situation.
Quick action was what was needed now. Frank knew this.
But it would be flatly impossible to go around the island.
The Esquimaux would easily cut them off, and a fight at close quarters was to be by all means avoided.
The Esquimaux now were advancing to the attack.
Where they had all come from so suddenly was a mystery.
There seemed fully one hundred of them. They came over the ridges and through the defiles in a solid body.
There was no way but to retreat before them.
This meant to the shores of the island, then out upon the ice pack, and, perhaps, to the mainland.
Frank and Pomp fell back before the Esquimaux.