“Oh, Jeanne!” she cried. “Here it is! Here’s the very place! All dark and spooky!”
“Yes,” Jeanne wailed, “and here am I. I—I just can’t come down there! Makes me dizzy to think about it.”
“Wait. I’ll come up and help you.”
In a surprisingly short time Vivian was again at her side. “It’s all in getting used to it,” she breathed. “I’ve always lived here, and I’ve climbed all over. Now when I get down to that first shelf, you grab that root and slide over the side. I’ll catch you.”
With wildly beating heart Jeanne followed instructions. Three minutes later, to her vast surprise, she found herself on a lower rocky shelf looking into a dark cavern that might well have been called a cave.
“You—you’re wonderful!” She patted Vivian on the shoulder.
Vivian evidently did not hear this well-deserved praise. “Now,” she breathed, “now for the treasure!”
At that moment two men, one with his feet garbed in crude moccasins made from a torn-up blanket, were standing on the distant shore close to a weather-beaten cabin.
“John,” the taller of the two was saying, “that column of smoke is the first sign of life I’ve seen on this island. Who can it be? Do you suppose they’re Indians?” They were speaking of the smoke from Vivian’s signal fire.
“If they’re Indians, they’re civilized, living this far south. Probably got a good supply of food, too, and that’s what we need. Stuff in this cabin is about gone. Wish I knew what island this is.”