"We must make the best of it, of course," she said, as calmly as possible. "We can't even light a fire, I suppose."
"I certainly have no matches," he answered, cheerfully. "All I had were in my coat. Suppose we explore the island first and leave despair till after breakfast."
She met his gaze with fearless eyes that set his heart to pounding.
"I shall never despair," she answered, more bravely than she felt,—"at least, I shall try to do my part, till we are taken off."
He understood the challenge in her attitude.
"I felt that from the first," he answered, easily. "Perhaps we'd better begin by climbing up to the headland."
He caught up a short, heavy stick and turned about to force a way up through the rocks and tangled growth between the shore and summit.
And what a figure he presented—even to the frightened girl, whose anger still lingered in her veins—stripped, as he was, to his shirtsleeves, a powerful, active being, masterful and unafraid. With a strange, dreadful sense of isolation and the primitive, aye, even primal, conditions in which they had been cast, she followed helplessly at his heels for their first real look at the island.