“But then what was it?” she asked herself, “What could it have been?”
She climbed the tree, this time up to its very top, then, turning, shaded her eyes to gaze away the length of the island.
“Just as I thought,” she murmured. “Nothing. Just nothing at all.”
It was true. There could be no wireless tower. If there had been she could have seen it. What was more, there certainly was no house on the island. Had there been, she could not have failed to detect its roof from her point of vantage.
There was no house and no wireless station, yet, as she looked her lips parted in an exclamation of surprise.
She was witnessing strange things. Toward the other end of the island something was moving in and out among the drifting ice-cakes. This, she made out presently, by the flash of a paddle, was some sort of a boat.
“And it is,” she breathed. “No—no it can’t be! Yes, it is, it’s an Eskimo kiak!”
At once she thought of the Negontisks. Could it be possible that they had stumbled upon a secret home of some of these people?
As if in answer to her question, the strange manipulator of this queer craft drew the kiak on shore, then, skipping hurriedly along the beach and up a sandy ridge, suddenly put two hands on something and the next instant dropped straight down and out of sight.
Florence caught her breath sharply. She clutched the fir boughs in the fear that she would fall.