“Go fishing,” she informed Roberta when the meal was finished, so, after adding a string of blue beads to the red ones Natell was proudly showing that morning, and adding a storm coat to her costume, the girl Sky-Pilot followed the women out into the sunlight, for every bit of fog had been dispelled. They cut across the island toward the northwest and on a smooth little cove, tugged a deep canoe, which certainly had not been there the day before when the white girl did her exploring.
“The island must be full of hiding places,” she remarked to herself, and wondered how much it concealed. By that time Roberta was so full of the mystery of the place that being marooned or imprisoned there was receding further back in her brain; although nothing could make her forget the anxiety she knew must weigh down her own home in far away Long Island, but she determined that if she ever succeeded in getting away, she would be able to give some real information as to what enterprise was conducted there. She thought of Mr. Howe, and then it occurred to her that she was to have had a mission with him. “It couldn’t have been more exciting than this thing I’ve stumbled, or been piloted into.”
“Sit here.” Nomie designated with a nod a thin cushion in the middle of the boat, which reminded the white girl of pictures she had seen of native-made crafts. She took her place cautiously, for it looked as if it would take very little to turn the thing over, but Natell hopped in one end, then with a short paddle held the boat steady until her mother was safely in the other. Without a word the pair dipped their paddles and the canoe shot speedily over the water, going toward the northwest.
“Little island, much fish,” Nomie remarked and Roberta didn’t know whether she was speaking of the land they were leaving behind, or another one.
“Is that so,” she replied, and Nomie, who was facing her, nodded.
They sped along over the blue water, occasionally pausing to drop a line, and once the Indian woman set a trawler which glistened as it dragged yards behind them. Natell seemed to keep an eye on this, but nothing was caught, and after an hour they reached another island, almost as barren as the one they had left. They sent the boat slowly in and out among jagged rocks and the white girl marveled that they were not dashed against the sharp edges which protruded dangerously all about them.