[Illustration: _Page 239_ THEIRS WAS A WICKIUP]




  Smugglers’ Island
  and the Devil Fires
  of San Moros

  By
  Clarissa A. Kneeland

  _With Illustrations by
  Wallace Goldsmith_

  [Illustration]

  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
  The Riverside Press Cambridge
  1915




  COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY CLARISSA A. KNEELAND

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  _Published October 1915_




CONTENTS


     I. A PICNIC TO THE ISLAND                         1

    II. FOR SHELTER IN A STORM                        30

   III. COMMISSARY MATTERS                            57

    IV. BONANZA COVE                                  86

     V. THE EGG ISLANDS                              113

    VI. THE JAGUAR’S TRACK                           149

   VII. THE MUGGYWAH                                 181

  VIII. THE BUILDING OF THE WICKIUP                  212

    IX. DAVIE’S PANAL HUNT: AND WHAT CAME OF IT      245

     X. DELBERT’S BIG GAME                           260

    XI. WHEREWITHAL SHALL WE BE CLOTHED?             274

   XII. DISASTER AND A NEW TASK                      299

  XIII. HOW THE LAUNCH CAME BACK TO SMUGGLERS’       320

   XIV. THE END OF THE PICNIC                        344




SMUGGLERS’ ISLAND and the Devil Fires of San Moros




CHAPTER I

A PICNIC TO THE ISLAND


Marian Hadley stood in the doorway of her home in a small seaport town
of Mexico, watching her ten-year-old brother Delbert come stumbling up
the hill with his arms full of mail.

“We’re out early,” he shouted. “The teacher let us all out early. There
are the girls coming now, down by the office. Oh! and we’re not going
to have any more school this week. The teacher has got to go to the
dentist every day, and she isn’t going to feel like teaching; so we are
going to have vacation.”

“Dear me,” said Marian, smiling, “what in the wide world will you
children do, with so much spare time on your hands?”

“O Marian! Marian! Can’t we--it will be just the time to do it--can’t
we go to Smugglers’ Island?” Delbert’s body fairly quivered with
excitement, and his dark eyes were shining like stars. “Let me ask Mr.
Cunningham for the launch. We could go to-morrow. O Marian, do, please!”

Marian hesitated. “Smugglers’ Island! That is a long way off. We
couldn’t be ready by to-morrow; it is late now.”

“We don’t need anything but a lunch. I don’t mean to get up a party.
Just us go. We don’t need to go to a lot of fuss.”

If Marian had an especial weakness, it was her brother Delbert. She was
proud of that spirited, handsome little face, and rarely clouded it by
a refusal if a consent was possible. Besides the sister love she gave
him in common with the other children, there was a desire to make up to
him the loss of a companion brother who had died a few years before,
a brother a little older than Delbert, but of much the same cast of
features.

Now she thought, “Why not? Why think one must make elaborate
preparations for every little pleasure, when the children would enjoy
it as well, maybe better, without?”

She laughed. “Here come the girls,” she said. “We’ll put it to a vote.”

The little girls, Jennie and Esther, came up the path. Jennie was
eight, a puny, thin little shadow, with eyes that seemed much too big
because the face was so thin and colorless. She had been born a sickly
baby and had averaged at least one illness every year of her life
since, and had never known what actual health was. When Mrs. Hadley
had decided to accompany her husband on his business trip to Guaymas
she had thought seriously of taking Jennie with her, though she had
had never a moment’s uneasiness at leaving the other three in their
sister’s care. But it had seemed a pity to take the little girl out of
school, where she was doing well; and also there was a good American
doctor in town, whom Marian promised faithfully to send for at the
first symptom of anything wrong; so, as Jennie herself did not seem to
care about going, it was finally decided she should stay.

Esther, the six-year-old, stood in pleasing contrast to her sister.
Having never known sickness, she was a sturdy, robust little specimen,
as plump as the baby David, dimpled and rosy, with curly hair that was
forever getting into her bright eyes.

Delbert was dancing with delight. “Girls, girls,” he squealed, “listen,
quick. All in favor of going to Smugglers’ Island to-morrow, signify by
saying ‘Aye.’”

“Aye, aye, aye!” he yelled; and Esther, taking her cue, also launched a
myriad of “ayes,” but Jennie shook her head in grave disapproval.

“You are too ev’lastin’ noisy,” she said. “Marian, we are not going in
the launch, are we?”

The baby was calling “Aye” most lustily.

“There,” declared Delbert, “that’s a m’jority, Marian. Three out of
five’s a m’jority.”

Marian drew Jennie tenderly to her. “Delbert wants to go to Smugglers’
Island to-morrow. It is a long way, but perhaps you would not be
seasick in the launch. Do you want to go?”

The little girl’s shining eyes were answer enough. Marian laughed and
kissed her. “Delbert,” she said then, “take that bill that is in my
purse down to Mr. Cunningham now and refund him for the duties on these
packages and thank him for me,--don’t forget that,--and then see if he
can let us have the launch to-morrow. It may be let to some one else,
but if it isn’t, and if we can have it, why, pay him for that too, and
don’t forget that. But I warn you children there’s not a thing for
lunch but bread and butter. I haven’t so much as a cooky in the jar,
and it’s too late for me to bake now.”

Previously there had lived at the Port for some years an American boy
whose chief joy in life had been found on the water, and, having been
blest with a small sailboat of his own, he had been able to indulge his
sailor propensities to the utmost. Sometimes with other boys, often
alone, he had sailed up and down the coast for miles, exploring the
shallow bays and winding _esteros_,[1] and he knew all the sandbars and
islands.

  [1] An _estero_ (pronounced _es-tāʹ-ro_) is an estuary, an arm
      of the sea.

A few miles out from the Port was a group of islands known to the
Americans thereabouts as the Rosalie Group. The natives gave them
another name, unpronounceable, and certainly unspellable. They
consisted of quite an assortment of rocky knolls and stunted trees,
and little beaches, fine for bathing. Most people confined their
seaward excursions to trips of greater or less duration of time to
these islands, some half-dozen in number, but Clarence had ventured
much farther; he had even gone as far as San Moros, many miles down the
coast.

San Moros was a wide-mouthed, shallow bay, full of rocks and sandbars,
but at its farther extremity the young explorer had discovered
an island that gave unmistakable evidence of having once been
inhabited,--probably by smugglers, as in times past they had flourished
like the bay tree all up and down the west coast, as everybody knows.

Boy-like, Clarence had kept his discovery a secret, or at least had
revealed it only to a chosen few, Marian and Delbert being among the
elect. And when afterwards he had made a second trip to the place, Mrs.
Hadley had allowed Delbert to go with him. Clarence had been fond of
children and of Delbert in particular, and often took the little boy
with him on his all-day trips on the water. On this occasion they had
camped over and explored the Island and its surroundings.

It was long months now since Clarence’s family had moved from the Port,
but Delbert had always been anxious for a second trip to the Island in
San Moros, being eager to show it to Marian and his little sisters.

Before long Delbert came rushing back. “We can go! We can go!” he
called. “We--where’s Marian?--oh, there you are. Mr. Cunningham says
we can have the launch. The man he usually sends with it is sick or
something, but he got Mr. Pearson to take us instead. We can start
early in the morning. Goody! And say, Marian, can’t you fix some dough
for doughnuts and let me fry ’em for you?”

Marian looked severe. “Do you remember what happened the last time I
let you fry doughnuts?” she asked.

Delbert’s eyes twinkled. “Yes,” he said, “but that was learning; I
won’t do it that way now.”

“Shall we trust him, Jennie?” she asked.

“If you don’t, there won’t be any doughnuts to-morrow,” Delbert assured
her. “Marian has not got time to make ’em.”

“I guess we can this time,” decided Jennie.

“Me fry doughnuts, too,” said Esther.

“I am afraid me had better not,” said Marian; “but you and Jennie may
roll and cut them out for Delbert. And Davie, you sit up in your high
chair and watch sister stir up these doughnuts quickly, and then Davie
shall make a doughnut of his very own. Delbert, put the granite-ware
kettle on, and the lard is in that pail on the shelf there by you. I
think there is just enough; put it all in.”

She hurried the ingredients together, and, as soon as the dough was
ready for rolling out, turned it over to the apprentices and ran out of
the kitchen to the numerous other tasks that awaited her.

“You haven’t read us mamma’s letter yet,” called Jennie.

“Oh, I will read it while we eat supper,” Marian answered.

“What mamma say?” shrilled Esther.

“Says they will be back in two weeks,” came Marian’s muffled voice from
the far bedroom.

Presently she came back. “Jennie,” she said, “do you know what was done
with your and Esther’s bathing-suits when you came back from bathing
the other day?”

Jennie looked blank, but Esther answered promptly.

“Down to Bobbie’s.”

“Down at Bobbie’s? Whatever did you leave them there for?”

“Oh, yes,” cried Jennie, her face brightening, “I ’member now. We
stopped to play and hung ’em on Bobbie’s mother’s clothesline and
forgot ’em.”

“Well, that’s a great way to do! Esther, you run down after them now.”

Esther was kneading doughnut dough industriously. “To-morrow,” she said.

Marian considered a moment, and then said: “No, you go now, it is two
days they have been there already, and they may have got into some
corner where Bobbie’s mother won’t know where they are, and we won’t
have any time to hunt for lost things in the morning. It is a long way
to Smugglers’ Island, and we must get off early or we shan’t have time
to explore it and get back by dark.”

Esther sighed, and began to clean the dough from her little fat hands.
“Tell where we going?” she asked.

“No; better not.”

“Why?”

“Oh, because if Bobbie knows we are going in the launch, he will want
to go, too, and I know positively his mamma wouldn’t let him.”

“Why?”

“Oh, you little interrogation-point!” expostulated Marian under her
breath. Aloud she answered patiently, “Because Bobbie was awfully
naughty and went in the fishing-boat without asking his mamma, and she
was so worried about him, and when he got back she told him he couldn’t
go anywhere except to school,--not anywhere, not even up here to play
with Delbert,--for two whole weeks.”

“Not two weeks yet?”

“No, it is not two weeks yet. Now, do go on, Esther. Just ask for the
bathing-suits and don’t make Bobbie feel bad by telling him about a
picnic he can’t go to.”

       *       *       *       *       *

In the morning, before Marian had breakfast out of the way, Delbert
came in with a rush. “I have just seen Mr. Pearson. He is going to his
breakfast, and he says he is all ready, and he wants to know if there
is anything you want him to do.”

“Yes,” said Marian; “tell him to get a demijohn of water. Mr.
Cunningham has a demijohn he uses for that, but Mr. Pearson may not
think of it.”

“Oh, but there is water on the Island, plenty of it.”

“Yes, my dear, but it has not been filtered, and I don’t want you
children drinking anything and everything. Oh! and did you put plenty
of water for the chickens, Delbert?--and put a big stone in the pan so
they can’t tip it over?

“Bread and butter and doughnuts,” she continued, “and I must take milk
for Davie. Dear me! I haven’t enough to fill the jar either. Here,
Jennie, get a dime from my purse and take this pail and run down and
see if Bobbie’s mother can let me have a quart of milk. If she hasn’t
it to spare, you will have to go to Doña Luisa. Delbert, find the
hatchet. It will come in handy when we come to build a fire for noon.”

“Haven’t you got eggs, Marian? Take some raw eggs, and we can boil
them over a fire; it’s lots of fun.”

“I’ve only three, Delbert, but if you can, get some at Bobbie’s, or ask
Fanny’s mother if she can spare me some.”

“We can get crabs and clams, you know,” said Delbert. “There’s barrels
of ’em. Clarence and I had ’em. But take plenty of bread and butter,
Marian. Mr. Pearson can eat a lot, I know.”

“Yes. Run on now and see about the eggs, and then go down and tell Mr.
Pearson about the water. Let me see,” she continued,--“what else? Oh,
yes, if we go bathing, I shall have to comb my hair.”

She wrapped up her comb and brush in a clean towel, and then, on second
thought, tucked in a little pocket-mirror and a cake of tar soap and
two more towels.

“Marian, me got my spade and pail, but me can’t find baby’s,” called
Esther.

“His little pail is here,” answered Marian, “but I don’t know where his
spade is. Let him take the big dig-spoon instead.” A dig-spoon, be it
known, is a spoon so old and dilapidated that mother does not mind if
the children use it to dig in the dirt with. The big dig-spoon of the
Hadley children was a huge iron affair about a yard in length that had
doubtless been originally intended to stir soup in a hotel kitchen.

As they started down the hill on the way to the pier, Bobbie’s mother
ran out to her gate. “Marian,” she called, “are you taking plenty of
wraps with you? You know it gets cold toward evening.”

Marian held up a couple of light shoulder shawls. “Delbert has his
coat,” she said, “and Esther and I never want anything around us
anyway. There are always a couple of blankets on the launch seats.”

“Oh, you foolish child,” declared the lady; “you wait.” She ran back
into the house, and in a moment came back with a very large heavy
circular cape, “There, you take this,” she said. “It will cover you and
Esther and the baby too. Jennie will need both those flimsy shawls. You
know it won’t do to let her get chilled.”

Marian thanked her laughingly and accepted the cape.

Mr. Cunningham was down on the pier. He was a dapper young man,
pleasant and good-looking and well liked by everybody at the Port,
and he held the most lucrative and responsible position of all the
Americans there.

[Illustration: MARIAN LAUGHINGLY ACCEPTED THE CAPE]

He smiled as the Hadley party trailed down the hill and out on the
pier, the sturdy baby well in the lead.

“Here comes King David and his train,” he called. “By Jove,” he
added, observing the huge dig-spoon, “he has his scepter with him
too.--Good-morning, Miss Marian; do you mean to tell me that basket is
full of lunch?”

“Not quite,” laughed Marian. “There is a hatchet and my workbag and a
few other things as well.”

“Workbag!” exclaimed Delbert in disgust. “What did you bring that for?”

“Oh, I may hemstitch a little while you children dig in the sand. I
shan’t ask you to do any sewing, Delbert.”

As the big basket was being stowed away in the launch, Mr. Cunningham
said laughingly, “If you find you have not enough, Miss Marian, there
is some canned stuff in the locker you are welcome to.”

“Thank you,” said Marian, “I think we have plenty. I have been on trips
like this before; I know how children eat. Delbert, I forgot to put in
anything to cook the eggs in. You wanted to boil them, and we haven’t a
thing.”

“Use Esther’s pail,” he suggested.

“It leaks too badly, and baby’s pail is wooden. No, if you want those
eggs cooked, you will have to go back and get something.”

“There will be the clams, too,” said Delbert, starting back across the
pier on a trot.

“Oh, and, Delbert--”

“What?”

“You might bring Jennie’s cape, too, while you are there; and, Delbert,
Delbert! Be sure and lock the door again when you come out.”

“We ought to have something to bring home clams in, too,” she said
after a moment, “but he is too far gone now to call back.”

“There is a big pail here in the boat-house,” said Mr. Cunningham,
going to get it.

“I shan’t be here when you get back,” he said, coming back with the
pail, “but the launch can be turned over to Manuel. I am going up the
river for a couple of days. I must be getting ready now, so I will bid
you good-bye and wish you a pleasant trip.”

He shook hands with Marian, pulled Esther’s curls, smiled at Jennie,
stood the baby on his head a moment, and strode off across the pier.

Soon Delbert came running down the hill again, his arms full.

“Morning, Mr. Faston,” he called to an old gentleman who, with a basket
on his arm, was starting toward the plaza for his breakfast steak.

“Good-morning, Delbert. Where you all going so bright and early?”

“Going to Smugglers’ Island.”

Delbert ran down to the launch and scrambled in. “I brought baby’s
jacket, too,” he said, dumping the wraps, the granite-ware kettle, and
a little bright new dishpan in a heap at Marian’s feet.

“I see you did, but whatever did you bring that dishpan for?”

“Why, it was sitting out there on the table, so I s’posed you forgot
it, and I wasn’t going to be sent back again.”

Marian laughed. “I had no notion of bringing it,” she said. “Well, Mr.
Pearson, I guess we are all ready. You’d better start off before we
think of something else we might like to take.”

“Just think, Marian,” said Delbert; “Mr. Pearson has not been outside
the harbor since he has been here.”

“No? Never been to the Rosalie Group, Mr. Pearson?”

Pearson cleared his throat. “No; when a man is busy he don’t get much
time for picnics,” he said.

“I am to show him the way,” continued Delbert, “and he is to make the
launch go there.”

It was a lovely day. The children were fairly bubbling over with the
glee of it, and Marian herself felt unusually gay and light-hearted.

Mr. Pearson was rather silent. He was a newcomer to the Port, and
Marian had had hitherto but a bare speaking acquaintance with him. She
had an instinctive feeling, however, that he considered children as
necessary nuisances; so she tried to keep them from annoying him too
much with their chatter. However, though he volunteered no remarks,
he answered good-naturedly what was said especially to him, followed
minutely Delbert’s instructions as to their direction, and listened
with apparent interest when the little fellow told of trips taken with
Clarence in the sailboat.

Outside the shelter of the harbor they encountered the high waves of
the Gulf, and Davie was so frightened that Marian had much ado to
keep him quiet. Jennie, too, began to feel a few qualms of her old
enemy, seasickness, so that with them both Marian had little chance to
exchange sociabilities with Mr. Pearson.

Leaving the Rosalie Group on their right, they turned down the coast
bound for San Moros.

Delbert was entirely unafraid. The higher the wave the better it suited
him, and he was constantly declaring he only wished they were going to
stay a week. Esther echoed him, as was her wont, and Jennie feebly put
in a few remarks of the same tenor, her feeling in the matter, however,
being born of a desire to put off the nausea-beset homeward trip rather
than to prolong the picnic joy.

[Illustration: FOLLOWED MINUTELY DELBERT’S INSTRUCTIONS AS TO THEIR
DIRECTION]

Finally they rounded the point and entered San Moros. Delbert
remembered just how Clarence had made his way in among the many rocks
and sandbars, most of which were covered at high tide. The Island lay
some miles back, a crescent in shape, high and rocky at one end and
running out to a narrow sandy point at the other. No one approaching it
would have mistrusted it was other than the mainland, for the formation
was such as to blend it perfectly with the mainland back of it, and it
showed no sign of the strip of water between till one was close upon it.

“We landed first by that point of rock,” declared Delbert, pointing,
“and then afterwards we took the boat in back of the Island and tied
her to the pier till we were ready to go home.”

“I guess that is a good enough programme to follow now,” said Mr.
Pearson. “Didn’t you say this side was best for crabs? That’s a
nice-looking beach along there, fine for you kids to bathe on. We will
tie up to those rocks till after dinner.”

“Well, all right,” agreed the boy. “There is a path up to the top of
the hill, Marian, but it doesn’t come down on this side. Clarence said
the smugglers wore it going up to peek over the hill to see if any one
was coming for ’em.”

The little point of rock on the seaward side of the Island made a very
good substitute for a pier. They landed there and were able to reach
the sand without getting their feet wet. Jennie declared she felt
better as soon as she touched shore.

Delbert was anxious to lead the expedition over to the other side of
the Island, where remained the signs of former habitation.

“You can go on over now,” said Pearson good-naturedly; “I’ll unload the
launch and take a swim, and if you say there is anything there worth
looking at I can go over afterwards.”

Delbert hesitated; he was counting on expatiating on the extent and
glory of the ruins and preferred a large audience.

“Why, of course, Delbert,” said Marian; “Mr. Pearson can take the
launch around after dinner. This is the best side for bathing. I am not
sure,” she added, as the children started off, “but after dinner would
be soon enough for the rest of us, but--”

Pearson laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “There is no wait in that
kid,” he said.

“I see there isn’t,” said Marian, as she started after her eager
brother.

The hill was decidedly rocky and steep, with a goodly strip of sandy
beach at its base. The crabs scurried away as the children ran across
this.

“See, Marian!” called Delbert; “see all those crabs? We’ll have them
for dinner. Don’t they look fat?”

“Fat and luscious,” laughed Marian. “You are fat and luscious, too,
baby darling,” she continued, catching Davie as he stumbled over a
stone, “but those qualities alone will never make a mountaineer of you.”

Delbert forged ahead, scrambling over rocks and skirting thorny bushes,
and the others followed as best they could.

“I suppose when you get there you will stop and wait for us,” called
Marian.

“Oh, yes,” he answered; but he did not take the hint and slacken his
pace then.

His bump of locality was good, and although it was almost a year since
he had been there, he made his way directly to the spot on the apex of
the hill where a faint path led down on the other side. Here he paused,
and, letting out a series of triumphant whoops, announced his arrival
to his upward-toiling sisters.

One by one they joined him where he sat on a big gray rock, swinging
his lariat, his most treasured possession, a new hair rope given him by
an old Mexican a few weeks before.

“Dear me,” said Marian, all out of breath, as she set down the baby,
whom she had been carrying the last part of the way; “whatever did you
expect to lasso here, Delbert? Crabs?”

“No,” he replied, “burros! Didn’t you know there were burros here?
There’s a herd of ’em. Clarence said probably the smugglers had to
leave in a hurry and couldn’t stop to round up everything they had.
Anyway, there’s burros here. Yes, and pigs, too. We saw their tracks;
we didn’t see them, but Clarence said when he was here the first time
he heard ’em grunting in the bushes.”

Marian was examining the surroundings. “I believe Clarence was right,”
she said. “That is a real path certainly, but there is not a sign of it
on the seaward side of the hill. Whoever lived down there used to come
up here to this rock. You can see away out into the gulf from here,
ever so many miles, but it is so bushy that no one here would ever be
seen.”

“Yes,” assented Delbert; “Clarence called this Lookout Rock. Farther
back this hill spreads out into a _mesa_.[2] It’s several miles long.
Clarence said there were deer here, too; he saw ’em.”

  [2] Pronounced _mā-sȧ_; a small tableland.

“An’ wil’ cats?” queried Esther.

“No,” said Delbert. “I remember when we camped here it was awful quiet
at night, and I asked Clarence if he s’posed there were any panthers
here, and he said no, he hadn’t seen a sign of any such thing here, and
he guessed if there ever had been, the smugglers had killed them all
off.”

“That is not unlikely,” said Marian; “but the burros and pigs must have
come from what they had; perhaps the deer, too,--they might have had
some for pets. But, come, if we have our breath now, children, we’d
better go down; for see, Mr. Pearson has the launch unloaded already,
and there is dinner to get when we get back.”

So they followed the twisting trail downward. It was very faint, in
some places entirely obliterated, yet taken as a whole was distinct.

Between the Island and the mainland lay a strait that was deep enough
for even large steamers, though there was little of San Moros that
a big steamer could have ridden safely over. A little rough rock
pier had been built here. “And Clarence said the fellow that built it
understood his business, too,” declared Delbert, emphatically. “He said
it was a good job; but come and look at the bananas,” he continued,
leading the way.

The Island, which elsewhere presented such rough, not to say
precipitous, sides, here was level or nearly so. A house had once stood
there. The mound of its ruins was unmistakable. In one place a forked
timber stuck up; on one side was a pile of other timbers overgrown with
weeds and shrubbery. There was a spring, too, that had had some sort of
masonry cover, broken now, but with a tiny pool of water at the bottom
of the rocks. There were the remains of an old stone wall that had once
surrounded a garden, of which only a thick, matted banana-patch was
left.

A banana plant grows to maturity, produces one bunch of bananas, and
then dies. During the time it is doing this a number of young plants
spring up about the parent stalk, and each of these produces its one
bunch of fruit and group of little ones, which in turn go through the
same process. It will be readily seen, therefore, that, with no one
to trim out the old stalks and superfluous young ones, a banana-patch
would in the course of time become a very crowded place, indeed.

This was just what had happened to the Smugglers’ Island patch. How
long it had been left uncared-for no one could tell, but it was now an
impenetrable jungle.

Marian and the children walked all round it, looking for bananas, but
except for several bunches from which the birds had eaten the fruit,
leaving the blackened skins dangling, they saw only one, and that was
too high up for them to reach. It did not look very tempting, anyway.
A little beyond were a few fan palms, but this kind of palm bears no
fruit.

Marian sat near the site of the old house, while the children rummaged
about and explored. This was certainly an ideal place in which to
hide from the world, a sunny little spot, sheltered and secluded, for
the hill hid the place from the seaward view, and across the narrow
strait lay only the rocky, thorny tangle of the uninhabited hill of the
mainland, with not even an Indian ranch for miles and miles, Clarence
had said. Marian wondered what chance or incident had caused the
abandonment of the place.

Presently she rose.

“Come, children,” she called, “we were going to catch crabs for dinner,
you know. We must be going back.”

So they went back up the dim little path to Lookout Rock and began to
pick their way down from there as best they could.

“Why, Marian,” called Delbert, “Mr. Pearson has moved the launch. It is
not by the rocks now. Where’s he gone?”

Marian glanced up.

“I guess he thought we were pretty long in coming and has gone
exploring on his own hook,” she said.

“I’ll see,” said Delbert, and he went out to where he could see the
water all around the end of the Island and in to the little pier.

“No,” he said, as he came back, “he has not gone round there.”

They went on down the hill.

“I don’t see why he should move it,” persisted Delbert. “That is the
best place for it on this side of the Island, and this is the best
beach for bathing.”

They went over to where the things were piled up. Pearson had dumped
them all together and thrown one of the launch blankets over them; and
on top of this a note was pinned with two wooden splinters.

[Illustration: MARIAN TOOK IT OFF AND READ IT, AND THEN STOOD LOOKING
AT IT FOR SEVERAL SECONDS]

Marian took it off and read it, and then stood looking at it for
several seconds.

“Delbert,” she said quietly, “did you know of any trouble between Mr.
Pearson and Mr. Cunningham?”

“Trouble?” repeated the boy, startled,--“trouble? Why--why,
no,--not--not trouble. Why?”

“Because,” said Marian, still quietly, “Mr. Pearson has stolen the
launch and gone away and left us here.”




CHAPTER II

FOR SHELTER IN A STORM


Delbert stared with wide eyes for a moment; then he snatched the note
from Marian’s hand to read for himself. He was not much accustomed
to reading writing, but this was very plainly written with a purple
indelible pencil on a leaf torn from a pocket memorandum-book.

  _Miss Marian_,--

  _Boss Cunningham has done me plenty of dirt and now he is going
  to regret it just one gasolene launch. Sorry to inconvenience a
  lady and all that, but the kids want to stay overnight anyway_.

Delbert looked up again into his sister’s face; then, dropping the
note, he sped across the sand and up the hillside to where he could get
a good view of the Gulf beyond the bay.

Marian picked up the note, and still stood looking at it.

“How we get home?” inquired Esther.

That was precisely the question that was racing round in Marian’s
brain.

“I don’t know--yet,” she said.

Slowly she took off the blanket that was thrown over the things.
The other blanket was there, too, and all of their things, also the
five-gallon demijohn of filtered water and a tin box of crackers,
nearly full, three cans of corn, and a quart can of tomatoes. She
remembered Mr. Cunningham had said there were some eatables in the
locker.

A big crab came slowly up and regarded them. Marian returned his look
gravely. “Yes,” she said, “I see you are there, and we may thank our
stars you _are_ there, too, you and your relations.”

“W-won’t Mr. Pearson come back?” faltered Jennie.

“I am afraid not,” answered Marian.

“But--but what shall we do?”

Marian reached down into her boots, where her heart had sunk, and
pulled up a smile by main force and put it on her lips. A connoisseur
in smiles would have known at a glance that it never grew there of its
own accord, but Jennie was only eight and was not versed in artificial
smiles.

“Well, my dear,” said the big sister, “we can’t walk back and we can’t
swim back, so I guess we shall just have to Robinson Crusoe it here
till some one comes after us. When they find we don’t come home, they
will hunt for us, of course. See here,” she added, briskly, pulling out
the big pail Mr. Cunningham had lent them for clams, “you children take
this pail and get some crabs. I will build a fire, and we will have
dinner right away before anything else awful happens to us.”

The children, reassured by her tone and smile, took the pail and
trotted off down the beach. They had caught crabs on the little beaches
of the Rosalies and understood the business. Even Davie got a stick and
landed a few.

Marian gathered some sticks and built a fire in the shade of a big
rock. She had it well started when Delbert came back to her.

“I can see something black away out in the Gulf; probably it is him,”
he said.

“Probably,” she answered.

They brought the things up to the fire and began to unpack the basket.

“I don’t see why he did it!” finally burst forth Delbert with clouded
face and quivering lips.

“Well,” said Marian quietly, “he evidently was a different kind of man
from what we supposed. There are a few such people in the world.”

“But, Marian, no one knows where we are. They wouldn’t know where to
look for us if they were hunting for us.”

“No, but I have been thinking, probably Mr. Pearson doesn’t know that.
What did you say to him last night?”

“Nothing. Mr. Cunningham did the talking. He just called and asked him
if he could go out with a party in the launch to-day, and he said yes
and came over and asked who was going, and when Mr. Cunningham told
him, he asked what time we should want him. It was this morning he
asked me if I knew the way, because he had never been out to any of the
islands, he said.”

“Did you tell Mr. Cunningham where we were going?”

Delbert thought a moment. “No; I just asked could we have the launch
for all day.”

“And you didn’t tell Bobbie or any of the other children?”

“No; I didn’t see any of them last night, and not to talk to this
morning. When I went for the milk, I just said we were going in the
launch. But Bobbie’s mother knew we were going; she brought out the
cape to you.”

“Yes, but she didn’t know where. I never thought to mention it to any
one. When you came back with Jennie’s cape, you told Mr. Faston we were
going to Smugglers’ Island, but unless some of them remember hearing
Clarence tell of it they won’t know where Smugglers’ Island is.”

Delbert shook his head. “Clarence didn’t tell about it to any one but
his folks and us. We had it for a secret. Why, Marian, they won’t know
at all where to look for us!”

“No,” replied Marian steadily; “it was an awfully mean trick for
Mr. Pearson to serve us, even without counting the stealing of the
launch, but you see, Delbert, Mr. Pearson supposes every one knows
where Smugglers’ Island is. He heard what you said to Mr. Faston, and,
besides that, I’ve been thinking, and there was not a single thing
said on the way out this morning that would have led him to suppose we
were the only ones that knew about the place. We talked about my never
having been here before, but not a word but what other people knew. He
supposes of course everybody knows, and that when we do not come home
to-night they will come straight here in the morning.”

“But they won’t,” said the boy. “When we don’t come home they will
think we are camping over. They won’t know till Mr. Cunningham gets
back that we were coming home to-night, and he is not coming back for
two days.”

“Oh, they will all know I wouldn’t have taken you children out camping
with only Mr. Pearson along; besides Bobbie’s mother knows we didn’t
take any bedding along, and even if she didn’t, she would know that if
we had intended to be gone overnight you would have asked Bobbie to
take care of the chickens.”

“Well, anyway, what if they do know we meant to be back? They don’t
know where we are. Hunting the Rosalie Group over won’t find us.”
Then he smiled a little grimly. “Do you know, Marian, it will be the
chickens that will tell them about it? They won’t worry about us
to-night; they will s’pose, of course, we will get in all right; but in
the morning all our chickens and old Peter Duck and Madam Waddle and
the whole brood of ’em will simply swoop down when Bobbie goes to feed
his chickens. Then they will begin to investigate. That’s all the good
it will do them; they won’t find us,” he concluded moodily.

“Marian,” he burst forth presently, unable in his nervous state to put
up with his sister’s silence,--“Marian, what do you think?”

“Delbert,” she answered, pausing in her work and looking up at him,
“the biggest thing in my mind just now is that bunch of bananas we saw
over on the other side.”

Delbert’s eyes roved over the provisions before him. “How long will
this last us?” he inquired.

“Well, I planned it for perhaps two meals for six people; as it
happens, there are only five to eat it, and we have Mr. Cunningham’s
eatables as well, you remember,”--she gave a little laugh. “You
remember he said we were welcome to them, if we didn’t have enough of
ours.”

“Huh! I should think so. You bet Mr. Cunningham would never do a dirty
trick like that. We--we can starve here for all Pearson knows or cares.”

Marian put down the kettle and went to her brother, with his flushed
face and flashing eyes winking back the tears. She drew the slender
little form into her arms close and tipped up the handsome, quivering
little face.

“Delbert boy, darling,” she said softly, “we are not going to starve.
The children might if you and I were not here, but we are here; there
are clams and crabs for the gathering, and I know a boy who, with his
jack-knife, can make a trap that will catch quail, and I once knew him
to kill a rabbit with a bow and arrow.”

“Yes, and you scolded me for it, too,” he said.

“I did. We didn’t need that bunny rabbit at all, but these babies are
going to need feeding, and we shall have to feed them with whatever we
can get, rabbits or what. And we can take care of them, Delbert, you
and I, till somebody comes. We will do it in spite of Mr. Pearson.”

“Pearson!” said the boy fiercely; “he can just go to--to blazes.”

Marian leaned down and kissed him. “No, dear,” she said lightly, “but
he may go to some other port and let the police catch him and send him
and the launch back to Mr. Cunningham.”

The boy laughed chokily and, twining his arms about his sister’s waist,
held her closely while she stroked his hair.

“No, darling,” she said presently, “we will not worry. You and I can do
a lot of things; you will see. Now, here come the girls with the crabs.
We mustn’t let them be frightened.”

Delbert straightened up. “How many did you get?” he called, and Marian
smiled at the easy cheerfulness of his tone.

“Oh, you will do,” she said approvingly, “you will do.”

While she cooked and prepared the crabs, she sent the children off
after clams. Under Clarence’s tuition Delbert had become quite an
expert at finding clams, and fortunately they were plentiful. Marian,
poor child, wondered how long one could live on an exclusive diet of
crabs and clams before getting utterly sick and tired of them.

She decided to put everybody on a rather short allowance of bread, so
as to make it last longer and explained it to them when she called them
up to eat. They did not mind; they preferred crabs anyway.

“Marian,” said Delbert, “I can’t think of a thing between Mr. Pearson
and Mr. Cunningham, except that Mr. Cunningham didn’t like his work
when he first came and discharged him from the shop. But he has been
working somewhere else ever since; that needn’t have made him mad.”

“Probably there is something that we don’t know about,” she said.

“Well,” he persisted, “I bet Mr. Cunningham didn’t know about it
either. He wouldn’t have sent him out with us if he hadn’t thought he
was all right. There was a fishline and hooks, too, in the locker,” he
continued. “Did you see anything of them, Marian?”

She shook her head. “He only left us the crackers and canned stuff--oh,
and a box of matches, and I had another one in our basket.”

“How many fires can we build with them?” he asked.

“A good many, but we don’t need to use them; we can keep live coals
over from one time to another, as papa does in the fireplace winters.
That is what we’ll do and use the matches only when we really have to.
On a sunshiny day I could light a fire with the crystal from my watch.”

They had never heard of such a thing, and Jennie and Esther wanted her
to take it off and show them how at once.

Marian declined. “We have a fire now,” she said. “The thing for us to
do is never to let it go out, day or night. If it goes out in spite of
us, because of something we cannot help, then we can build one some
other way.”

“Don’t people on desert islands build signal fires?” asked Delbert.

“Yes, and put out flags of distress, too. We couldn’t keep a fire going
_all_ night, but we could put up one of the towels or the tablecloth
daytimes, and we can build our fire nights where it can be seen out at
sea. And I think about the first thing we’d better do is to get up a
woodpile.”

That was an easy task. There was much driftwood along the beach,
besides the sticks that could be gathered from the hillside; and the
children enjoyed gathering it up, and Marian would have also if she had
not been inwardly so perplexed and worried.

To add to her worries, the sky turned cloudy and the wind rose. Suppose
it were to storm, and she with not even a tent to shelter these little
ones!

“Delbert,” she asked, finally, “isn’t there a cave on this Island?”

“Sure,” he answered; “right down here a way. Let’s go see.”

Marian’s hopes rose, only to fall again when she viewed the cave. It
stood barely above high tide, a dark hole, foul and ill-smelling from
the myriads of bats that lived in it.

“Dear me!” she said, “we can’t sleep in this, Delbert. Besides, if a
storm should come up, the water would wash right in.”

“It goes back a long way,” said Delbert. “Clarence and I went in with a
torch, but the farther you go the smellier it gets. Phew! No, I should
say we couldn’t sleep in it. If it’s a cave to sleep in that you want,
I guess we shall have to hunt one up.”

So they climbed back up the hill and began an investigation of the
big masses of rock which at that end of the Island looked as if some
giant hand had tossed them up and they had since lain in the same wild
confusion in which they fell.

It would be very strange, thought Marian, if some sort of shelter
could not be found among these. But she had no luck. Several places
she discovered that would have been ideal in pleasant weather, an
overhanging rock to keep off the dew, or a thick, dry, mossy bed, but
when wind and rain were to be considered--

Finally Delbert called to her from a point farther up than she had yet
gone.

“O Marian, here is a sort of a crack; maybe it would do.”

She scrambled over the intervening rocks and surveyed the “crack,” and
though it was far from being what she wanted, she saw at once that it
was the best place they had yet found.

It might, perhaps, have been called a miniature cave. It was not high
enough to stand up in, but extended back some ten or twelve feet,
growing smaller and smaller, till at its extreme end it was not more
than a foot in height. Its width was about the same as its depth.
A few feet away from the opening rose another rock, a smooth-faced,
gigantic mass that would keep the worst of the wind and rain away from
the mouth of the cave, or crack, as Delbert called it.

“I believe it is the best we can do,” she said. “We could at least keep
dry and warm in there. All the other places would be good only in good
weather. We’ll get some sticks and poke around and see if there are any
snakes or anything.”

Delbert promptly followed the suggestion. He crept in and punched and
poked most industriously and raked and scraped with energy, but could
start nothing, and he declared there did not seem to be any cracks
leading any farther back.

“That’s all right, then,” said Marian. “I didn’t want to dispute the
right of way with any snakes or centipedes. Now we’d better go down to
the bananas and get a lot of dried banana leaves to help out our bed.”

This they did, gathering an enormous bundle and tying it with the
lariat rope. Then Marian slung it over her shoulder and so with a very
little assistance conveyed it to the Cave.

By this time it was getting late in the afternoon. The sun had
disappeared completely from the gray sky, and the wind had risen so
that there was no doubt at all about the approach of a storm.

“We must bring everything up,” decided Marian. “Everything must come
under shelter here right away. We must not leave even the dig-spoon
down on the beach.” She was seized with a nervous dread of the water,
which was already rolling in higher than usual.

The little feet got tired of going up and down the rocky hillside, but
Marian and Delbert persevered till everything, even the wood they had
gathered, was safe at the Cave. Then Marian arranged things as best
she could for the night. She packed their belongings, so that they
would be some shelter for the bed of banana leaves and blessed Bobbie’s
mother for the big cape, which, with Jennie’s pinned to it, would serve
as a third blanket. Then she built a fire back of the big rock that
sheltered the mouth of their cave bedroom, and cooked the clams for
their supper.

The children huddled together by the fire. They were enjoying the
experience. Marian was big; she would take care of them; and it is
fun to cuddle down behind a big rock and watch your supper cook over a
dancing camp-fire.

[Illustration: COOKED THE CLAMS FOR SUPPER]

After supper Marian carefully packed a solid chunk of wood in a bed of
coals, covered these with ashes and dirt, and piled little rocks over
them to protect them from the rain that she felt sure would come in
abundantly before morning. She kept a fire going for light, as they
had no lamp or lantern of any description.

The children were tired and willing to go to bed after they had eaten,
and Marian herself was fully ready to lie down after she had got them
all packed away. She slept, too, for a while, but when the storm came
it wakened her, and there was no more sleep for her all that long, long
night.

The roar of the sea was terrific; the big waves were sweeping in from
the sea and breaking on the beach with thundering crashes. The flashes
of the lightning were intense, and the thunder seemed to Marian to
shake the very earth. She had thought they would be protected from
the wind, but it seemed to sweep over them with perfect freedom. She
shivered and shrank closer to the children. Davie was next to her. He
seemed to be warm and comfortable and he slept peacefully in all that
pandemonium. Poor little chap, he had been all worn out climbing up
and down the hill and chasing crabs on the beach. The others woke, and
Marian anxiously inquired if they were all warm. Delbert said his feet
were cold, but aside from that all were fairly comfortable. Crowded in
together as they were, they kept one another warm.

But they were frightened, and no wonder! The storm outside was a
regular tempest, and they were cooped in that little hole, sheltered
from the rain, indeed, but exposed to everything else.

They were afraid the rock roof would fall and crush them, that the
lightning would strike them, and Jennie was afraid the water would wash
up to where they were.

Marian knew there was no danger of the first and no probable danger of
the second, and she knew they were far beyond the reach of anything
less than an actual tidal wave that might engulf the whole Island.

She soothed and reassured them by every argument she could think of,
and then she sang to them all the songs she could call up that might
tend to reassure the shrinking human spirit at such a time, beginning
with

  “The Lord’s our Rock; in Him we hide,
   A shelter in the time of storm”;

and finishing with a rollicking glee with a rousing chorus that
announced that

  “We’re all right, all safe and tight,
   Let ’er howl, Bill, let ’er howl!”

And indeed “she” was howling outside so furiously that it was only
because Marian’s lips were so close to their ears that they could hear
her songs at all.

Some time along toward morning the thunder and lightning ceased, and
though the rain still came down in a steady pour, the wind still blew,
and the waves still thundered on the beach, one by one the children
dropped off to sleep. Marian did not. She lay there in a cramped,
uncomfortable position, for to change it meant to get out from under
the covering and expose the children to more of the cold wind. She
wondered where Pearson was passing the night. How she longed for
morning, yet when it came it brought little enough of relief. The worst
fury of the storm seemed to be over, but the wind was still high and
there was some rain.

Marian’s carefully banked fire was utterly drenched and washed away,
and she had to light a new one with a precious match. She built it
under shelter of the Cave, and then the smoke nearly drove them out
into the storm.

There was some of the clam soup left from supper, and, reinforcing it
with one of Mr. Cunningham’s cans of corn, she was able to fill them
all up with a hot breakfast.

They could not see anything because of the big rock in front of the
Cave, and to go out past the range of it meant to be drenched, or at
least dampened, and every one but Davie could see that that would not
do. The little girls could stand up in the wider part of the Cave, but
when Delbert forgot himself and tried it he got such a bump that he
fairly cried with the pain.

Marian smoothed up their bed and packed the food back into the basket,
and then racked her brain for methods of amusement. There was not much
that could be done, but they played a few simple little games that
could be played while sitting still, and really, all things considered,
got on marvelously well.

In the afternoon there was a cessation of wind and rain for a while,
so that they did venture out a little, but Marian was so fearful of
their getting their clothes damp that it was not much diversion, after
all. Of course, every tree was loaded with drops of water that the
slightest shake released, and the ground under foot was soaked and
running in little rivulets.

The second night was only less miserable than the first. There was no
storm to frighten them, and they slept more, but they were colder and
more uncomfortable when they were awake, which was really a good deal
of the time, after all. By morning the wind had died down and the sun
was struggling to break through the remaining clouds.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Bobbie went to feed his chickens on the evening of the day
the launch party went out, his little round, freckled face wore an
unusually sober expression. As he tossed out the handfuls of corn, he
gazed out over the waters regretfully. The way of the transgressor
is hard certainly, but only the last part of the way, the first part
is most remarkably easy. He had been down on the pier that fateful
morning with his mother’s full knowledge and consent,--nothing wrong
in that,--and when the fishing-boat was ready, the men had said, “Come
along, Bobbie,” and “Come, jump in if you want to, kid,” and there was
no time to go and ask his mother; they would not have waited for him
if he had; even his mother admitted that. There was no time to go and
ask, so he had gone without asking, and see what he had had to suffer
on account of it. One whole week already with no diversions besides
school and errands, and another, dreary with monotony, stretching ahead
of him.

To-day had been worst of all, with the Hadley house closed and silent,
and Bobbie knew they would have asked him to go with them if it had not
been for that ill-fated fishing-trip.

He heaved a sigh and flung out the last kernels, and then, as many of
Delbert’s chickens were hungrily helping themselves and the launch was
not yet in sight, he went over to the Hadley yard, climbed through the
shed window, and measured out the amount of corn he knew Delbert always
fed his flock. After he had given it to the eager biddies, he went
back home, and a little later, when he ran out to shut up his own, he
went over and closed Delbert’s coop also, first carefully counting the
inmates, as he knew Delbert always did. When he found one was missing,
he searched till he found the silly thing perched on a barrel in the
yard, a tempting meal for coyotes, and, hustling the misguided fowl
into the coop, closed the door securely. It was a service that he and
Delbert performed for each other so often that he did not even mention
the matter to his mother, and she, busy with her household tasks, gave
the launch party scarcely a thought, and supposed, of course, it came
home on time.

The storm was the worst the Port had known for years. Bobbie might
have saved himself the trouble of closing the coops so carefully, for
both were blown to pieces, and numbers of the chickens of each were
drowned. People had no thought or time to spare for chickens and their
coops. Roofs were sent flying, and many a wall had to be braced and
watched through the wild night. While Bobbie’s mother hurried to and
fro, moving things out from under the leaks in the roof, quieting her
frightened children, and keeping general watch and ward, she thought of
the Hadleys and spoke of them to her husband.

“Marian’s kitchen roof is probably leaking like a sieve,” she said,
“but I guess the rest of the house is all right.”

“Yes,” he answered, “I was just thinking it was lucky Hadley fixed
things up so well before he left. As it is, it is the safest house in
town.”

“Dear me!” cried the lady suddenly, discovering a stream of water
coming down in a corner hitherto considered safe and dry, “I only wish
ours was. Half the things I have will be utterly ruined if this keeps
up.”

“And it is going to keep up all right,” was the consoling reply of her
husband.

In the gray morning, when the storm abated and men in waterproofs began
to venture out and take stock of the damage done and compare notes, it
was discovered that the launch had not come back; that while frailer
shelters had gone crashing down, compelling their inmates to flee
through the storm to other shelters, the “safest house in town” had
stood untenanted and alone.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Mr. and Mrs. Hadley, hurried back from Guaymas by the awful news,
reached the Port, every foot of the Rosalie Group had been searched
over. On one had been found a child’s handkerchief beaten into the
sand. They gave it to Mrs. Hadley, and she looked at it a moment
silently. Just a ragged, soiled little thing it was, with a faint trace
of what had once been a picture printed in bright colors.

“It’s Esther’s,” said the mother, and she put it away, the most
sacred of her treasures. As a matter of fact, it was not Esther’s at
all,--Esther had hers with her at that moment,--but the grimy little
rag was taken for evidence indisputable that the launch party had been
on that particular island.

Over and over the boats went out and searched. All of the Rosalies,
all of the _esteros_ and marshy mud flats for many miles were gone
carefully over, not, indeed, with any hope now of discovering the lost
ones, but for some trace, some sign, something washed from the wreck.

When Mr. Cunningham returned, he declared himself completely mystified.
He knew the launch was in perfect condition when it went out that
morning, for he had examined it himself; and he knew Pearson was in
every way competent to run it. There had been plenty of warning of the
oncoming of the storm, plenty of time to have returned in safety.

But the launch did not return; it had gone out into the blue, and the
blue had swallowed it entirely. The waves lapped, lapped on the rocks
and little beaches, the seabirds swooped and called to one another, and
in time even the gray-haired father gave up the search, and he and his
quiet, sweet-faced wife packed up all their belongings and left the
scene of their terrible sorrow.

Only one person had advanced any theory other than that the launch
party had been in some way wrecked and lost in the storm. One man had
suggested that perhaps Marian and Pearson had eloped,--an idea that
caused more than a few smiles even at that time, for an eloping couple
would have been _so_ likely to take the lady’s four small brothers and
sisters with them. Just how any accident could have occurred was a
mystery, but that one had happened no one doubted.

Old Mr. Faston had, indeed, told of Delbert’s remark to him that they
were going to Smugglers’ Island, but Bobbie and the other children told
of playing pirate and smuggler on a sandbar of one of the Rosalies,
and the childish game was, of course, thought to be the reason of
Delbert’s statement.

So time passed. The Hadleys had gone from the Port, Delbert’s chickens
were added to Bobbie’s flock, a Mexican family moved into “the safest
house in town,” Mr. Cunningham bought a new launch, and, so far as the
Port was concerned, the incident was closed.




CHAPTER III

COMMISSARY MATTERS


But for Marian in the midst of her hungry, grimy little flock the
incident was far from closed. Indeed, it was only begun.

When their food was all gone but the can of tomatoes and a part of
the crackers, she made up her mind that nothing but accidental help
could be looked for. No one, not even her parents, knew anything
about Smugglers’ Island, and probably they were thought to have
perished in the storm. Perhaps Mr. Pearson had been swamped and
drowned. In the course of time some one would come into San Moros for
something,--Indians hunting turtles maybe,--but it might be long months
before they saw a human being besides themselves. There was no one to
rely upon but themselves; whatever was done they must do themselves.

Looking at the cluster of tousled heads, Marian set her teeth together
and clenched her hands tightly. The fierce protective spirit of
motherhood swept over her. They were hers, these little ones; come
what would, they should not perish, they should be fed, sheltered,
cared for. They should have their child’s rights of tender love and
happiness. Esther, running up just then, was caught in a close embrace
and kissed fervently.

The Cave afforded the best shelter for night that they could find. As
soon as things were dried up a little from the storm, Marian set about
improving it somewhat. For tools she had only the hatchet, Esther’s
spade, the dig-spoon, and Delbert’s knife and lariat.

With the hatchet she cut sticks and brush and with the lariat dragged
them up to the Cave, where she and Delbert made them as best they could
into a sort of roof for the space between the Cave and the big rock
in front. It was crude work, of course, but it gave shade and to some
extent served as a wind-break, at least. It was just high enough to
stand up under.

A place to cook over was soon made of a few rocks, and then Marian
turned her attention to the securing of food other than crabs and
clams. First there was the banana-patch. Not finding any good way of
reaching up to the bunch they found there, they cut the stalk it was
on, first looking carefully to see that there was no other bunch on the
same stalk. Later on they learned that each stalk bears but a single
bunch anyway.

Unquestionably those were the worst bananas that Marian had ever seen
in her life. Not only was the fruit small and dwarfed, but about half
of each banana was a dry, brown pith, while what remained was very far
from being good. But they were food, and Marian conveyed that bunch of
bananas to the Cave with the greatest of care.

Then with the hatchet and knife they cut down a great many other
stalks and dragged them out of the way, so that they could get about
in the patch and see what was there. It was not the pleasantest work
in the world, for they had to keep a sharp lookout for ugly, crawling
things. They found, however, several other sickly-looking bunches and
quite a number of birds’ nests. These last Marian was careful to leave
undisturbed.

Delbert was anxious to fly a signal flag, and as Marian was wearing an
extra petticoat, she decided to dedicate it to that purpose.

But it was a question where was the best place to fly it. There were no
very tall trees, and no place where it did not seem to her that a flag
would blend with the background. She had really very little hope of its
doing any good, but she did not suggest that to the children.

At last they picked out a tree and, after considerable discussion as to
ways and means and several ineffectual attempts, finally succeeded in
attaching the white skirt to one of the higher branches, where Delbert
was sure it would be seen if any one chanced into San Moros.

Delbert was continually mourning that they had no fishhooks and lines.
He and Bobbie had been famous fishers,--in their own estimations, at
least,--and he was quite sure that if he only had a hook and line he
would be able to haul out innumerable fish from the quiet water about
the little rock pier. Marian searched through their belongings and not
a hook could she find, and all her thread was rather fine. But though
crabs and clams were good, it took a great many of them to satisfy five
people three times a day, and it took more time to prepare them than
Marian wanted to spend. She declared that she would not open the can of
tomatoes till they were actually starving and could not get anything
else, and she put them on an allowance of one cracker apiece each meal.
Davie often howled for more, but Marian resolutely put them where he
could not get them for himself, and his lusty wails availed him nothing.

A few quail occasionally wandered into Delbert’s traps and from
there into Marian’s kettle, but Marian was not content, and one day
she braided her hair in two braids down her back and tried her hand
at making fishhooks out of her wire hairpins. She had not brought
her shears with her, but in her bag was a pair of little buttonhole
scissors that could be made to serve as plyers, perhaps, and her pretty
pearl-handled penknife had a nail-file on one blade. She could not put
barbs on her hooks, but she could sharpen them with the file. As one
hairpin by itself was not strong enough, she straightened out three and
bound them tightly together with embroidery silk.

After working faithfully all her spare time, one day she finished a
hook that she and Delbert were both sure would work. Then came the
question of a line.

“Delbert,” she said, “quite a while ago wasn’t Bobbie’s Uncle Jim
teaching you boys how to braid round whiplashes? Yes? Well, do you
remember now how he did it?”

“I guess I do,” said the boy slowly; “but you haven’t got near enough
thread to make a line strong enough to amount to shucks. That colored
silk would be all right, but you’ve got only a teenty bit of that.”

Marian smiled. “Why is your rope better than a common one?” she asked
him.

“’Cause it’s hair and it won’t rot and wear out like the fiber ones.”

Marian was unbraiding one of the long braids that hung over her
shoulder and with the scissors she snipped out here and there, where it
would not show, quite a number of tresses.

“Here,” she said, “you get busy now and let’s see if you know how to
braid a nice, smooth, round line, and then you can show me how, too.”

“O Marian, your pretty, pretty hair!”

“Yes, I know; it has been my pretty hair all my life, and it’s high
time it was useful as well as ornamental.”

But it took a long time to braid the line, and food had to be secured
meantime. Food!--that was the main topic of conversation,--to find
clams, to get big crabs, to make traps and set and watch them
afterwards. Never a fish was sighted but they wondered if it was good
to eat; never a bird flew over but they discussed whether or not it
would cook up tender. Delbert used to go twice a day, at least, to
look over his traps. Simple things they were, made of sticks fastened
together with strips of rag torn from the towel that had been wrapped
around the bread, and afterwards of the fibrous stems of the banana
leaves. Every day he saw rabbits, and one day he threw a stone that hit
one on the head and stunned it, and he despatched it with his knife. He
did not seem to mind killing the things that got into his traps, and
Marian was glad he did not, since it had to be done.

It was after the rabbit incident that the little boy came in one day
from making the round of the traps, holding by the tail a good-sized
rattlesnake.

“Mercy!” cried Marian, “how did you kill that?”

“With sticks and stones,” he answered. “He was right there in the path
by my last trap, and I settled his hash in a jiffy. Say, Marian, he
looks nice and fat. Bobbie’s Uncle Jim says they are as good eating as
eel.”

Marian gasped, “Snakes!” But the clams were getting scarce in the
immediate vicinity, and she had even begun to imagine that the crabs
were not quite so plentiful on the little sand-beaches.

“The history says,” continued Delbert, “that when the Spaniards were
conquering this country and South America, sometimes when parties were
sent out to go to places and got lost and wandered around, they had to
eat roots and snakes and toads.”

Marian was thinking she had certainly heard of people eating
rattlesnakes and--well--“All right,” she said, turning away to the
construction of the fishline, “you skin it, Delbert, and I’ll cook it.”

The filtered water in the demijohn did not last very long, of course,
and when it was gone Marian marshaled all hands to clean out the
spring. She usually marshaled all hands when there was anything to be
done, because somehow she could not bear to have any of the children
out of her sight for any length of time. When they were with her she
knew they were safe. True, there seemed to be little danger of any
kind, save that they were surrounded with plenty of water to drown in,
and there was no knowing how many more rattlesnakes the Island might
possibly contain.

She had hoped that when she got the stones cleared away the spring
would reveal itself as something extra good in the way of water-supply,
but it did not. Indeed, she was reluctantly forced to the conclusion
that it was no spring at all, only a shallow little well.

In the rainy season the water falling on these islands sinks into the
sand and stays there. One could find fresh water any time by digging at
a little distance back from the beach, where the sand lay in hills and
hollows, and Marian concluded that the only reason why the water came
to the surface in that particular spot was because it was situated in a
decided depression of the ground.

So she dug and scooped till she had a hole with about a foot of water
in it, and then she smoothed the sides and laid rocks so the sandy
soil should not cave in. From the tracks abounding in the vicinity she
concluded that the deer and burros both were accustomed to drink there,
and while she was willing that they should continue to do so, she did
not want them poking their noses into the very pool that she must dip
from for her little flock; so she made a cover with some sticks and
pieces of driftwood and some stones to keep them in place, and then,
to be still surer, she hollowed out another place for her four-footed
neighbors. The old dig-spoon and the little spade were her chief tools
in these labors.

“Dear me! Delbert,” she said playfully, “why didn’t we have sense
enough to bring a hoe and shovel with us?”

“Huh!” he retorted gloomily, “if we had had any sense we’d have stayed
at home.”

“There may be something in that too,” she answered.

“I know what I could do if you had brought your shears,” spoke up
Jennie.

“What, dear?”

“I’d cut a thing from this,” holding up the piece of tin cut from the
end of one of the cans of corn, “that Delbert could spear fish with.”

Delbert stared at her a minute, and then with one of his nervously
quick movements possessed himself of the ragged bit of tin.

Marian had opened the can with his knife. He looked at it a moment and
spoke excitedly. “We could! It wouldn’t be like a regular spear-head,
but we could catch ’em. I know just how the Indians throw them. Bobbie
has one, but he’s never caught anything yet.”

The idea was certainly worth trying. Marian would not ruin her precious
buttonhole scissors cutting tin with them, but she scratched the
pattern in the bit of tin and then went over it with the tip of the
butcher-knife, denting it; and the dents, made deeper and deeper,
finally became holes, and then soon there was her spear-head, such as
it was, needing only to be smoothed up a little and filed and bound on
the end of a smooth, slender stick that Delbert had been preparing.

Marian split the end of the stick a little and slipped in the bit of
tin and bound the stick with thread that she had doubled and twisted
till it was strong enough to suit her, then tied the lariat rope to the
other end of the stick.

Delbert spent the next day in exercising the new tool. His patience was
certainly marvelous. Hour after hour went by with no success, but he
was sure he would be successful some other time.

“I’ll get on to it after a while,” he said, as they ate their supper of
hot clam soup. “Those Indians at the Port catch them right along.”

“The thread will soon rot out,” said Marian. “I ought to have wire to
wrap the end with; copper wire would be best. There are two hairpins
left, but they are so short I can’t fix them, I’m afraid.”

It was fully a week afterwards before it dawned upon her that she had
in the edge of her hat-brim a nice piece of copper wire that just
filled the bill, and though its removal left the brim rather droopy,
that was a small matter.

Their supper they always ate at the Cave, as the light of their fire
could be seen far out from there; but breakfasts and dinners were
usually eaten down on the beach to save the trouble of carrying food
and water up the hill. Marian had built a second place for cooking down
in the shadow of the big rocks where they had eaten their first dinner
on the Island, and the children had dug a well in a hollow of the sand
not far off, which they used, although the water did not seem to be so
good as that on the other side of the Island, having more of a salty
flavor.

As Marian was carefully dipping water from the beach well one morning,
Jennie and Esther came running to her in great excitement.

“O Marian, come quick! The High-Tide Pool is full of fish, and Delbert
is going to spear them all!”

This was interesting, certainly. The High-Tide Pool was down quite a
way from where they had the well and the cooking-place. It was beyond
the sandy beach, where the rocks ran down into the water. When the tide
was high it had considerable depth, and ran back into a little cave
among the rocks, but at low tide the water was only two or three feet
deep in its deepest part, which was in the cave.

Sometimes they had seen a few little fish in it before, but that
morning the little girls had gone down and found it well stocked.

Probably just as the tide was going out, a great number had taken
refuge there. Perhaps some enemy was lurking outside and they dared not
leave the safe retreat, and now they could not leave it till high tide
came again.

Delbert was spearing industriously when Marian got there. He had
actually caught one, and it flapped feebly on the rocks beside him.

As his sister came up, he triumphantly called her attention to it.

“See that? Told you I could spear fish! But they all want to hide back
there in the cave. I tell you, Marian, I’ll go in there and drive them
out, and you can stand here and spear them. We’ll just keep spearing
and spearing till the tide comes in and the rest get away. I bet we can
get enough for several days. We can dry ’em as the Mexicans do.”

He handed her the spear and began hastily to disrobe. Delbert’s
movements were always hasty.

Marian began casting the spear unsuccessfully, but when Delbert got
into the pool he created such a commotion that several of the fish in
their wild endeavor to escape, flopped clear out on the bare rocks and
were easily captured. By that time a better idea had come to Marian.

[Illustration: MARIAN HAD BEEN CASTING THE SPEAR UNSUCCESSFULLY WHEN
DELBERT GOT INTO THE POOL]

“O Delbert,” she cried, “come out now, wipe up on my apron and get back
into your clothes. We have enough for breakfast and dinner, too.”

“Oh, but we want all we can get,” he called back. “We can dry ’em, I
tell you, and as soon as the tide is high again they will all get away.”

“That’s all right, but listen! I have a scheme for keeping them all.
This is too good a thing to let the tide take away from us. Why, there
must be fish enough in there to last us a week at least, maybe two.
See, Delbert, we must build some kind of a fence across, so they can’t
get away when high tide does come. Then we can come every day and get
what we want till they are all gone.”

Delbert splashed right out without more remarks.

“We can do it with rocks and sticks and brush,” she continued. “It
won’t be possible to drive stakes in the ground here, because it isn’t
ground,--it is all rock,--but we can make them stand firm by piling
rocks around them.”

She went to work systematically. She set the children to bringing
rocks, while she and Delbert cut the stakes and brush up on the
hillside and dragged them down with the rope. Then, selecting the place
where she could accomplish her purpose with the least labor, she set a
row of stakes a little way apart, piling rocks about each one till it
was quite firm and solid, and then began weaving in brush.

It was a long task. Trip after trip she made up the hillside with the
rope and hatchet, and her face and hands were scratched with the thorny
brush. The children grew tired of helping, and Davie was crying because
he was hungry, for Marian would not stop to prepare food. She dared
not. In that little pool was food, food. If she could shut the way
across before the tide came in, then she and her little ones were safe
without question for some time to come; if not--“Why, Delbert,” she
said, “we might live here for years before we should have such a chance
again.”

Finally she sent him up to start a fire and clean the fish they had got
before they began the fence, and when he had them in the kettle over
the flames he returned to help her. Thereafter she would occasionally
send up the little girls to put on more wood or to pour a little more
water into the kettle, but she herself kept at the task.

Marian did thorough work; she dared not slight it in a single place;
it must be strong enough to resist the force of the waves, and it must
be so solid that no fish of any considerable size could get through,
and she dared not stop, she dared not stop. The tide began creeping
back over the rocks, and she sent the children back for more brush
and sticks, and more still, and went herself again, and still again,
and now the water was running over into the pool again, and still she
worked. She knew how high up on the rocks it would be when the tide
was at its full height, and she must get above that. She had done the
work well so far, yet it would all be in vain if she did not get above
high-water mark.

Finally she finished it with the water waist-deep around her, and as
she dragged herself out, it seemed as if she had never been so tired
in all her life before, but she was sure that her work was done well.
Tired and hungry and smarting from scratches and the thorns she had
not had time to remove, she was yet happy. For the first time since
Pearson’s treachery had left them stranded there, she felt a firm
foundation under her feet.

In spite of the little girls’ care the fire had gone out under the
kettle and the fish were not done. They were not very trustworthy as
cooks yet, but Marian started things going again and sent Jennie up
to the Cave for a blanket and some safety-pins and a needle from her
workbag.

When she came back, Marian removed her wet clothing and donned the
blanket in its stead, pinning it in place with the safety-pins, and
then proceeded to extract thorns with the needle. Delbert also required
some of the same surgical attention. Then, as soon as the fish were
done, they broke their fast, and afterwards she took Davie and lay down
in the shadow of a rock to sleep, secure in the knowledge that there
were fish enough in the kettle for one more meal and that there were
plenty more where they came from.

The fencing-in of High-Tide Pool certainly marked a new period in
the life on the Island. It was the first work of any size, and its
completion gave assurance of food for many days to come without
spending all their time in the securing of it.

Afterwards Marian bent her energies on the fishline to the exclusion
of everything else till it was finished. It took the two extra hairpins
to fasten the hook and line together satisfactorily, but Marian did
not grudge hairpins nor time nor labor when she saw how eager the
fish of High-Tide Pool seemed to be to attach themselves to that
amateurish-looking implement. She thought the fence she had built
probably served, to some extent, to screen out the smaller fish that
would otherwise have provided breakfasts and luncheons for those she
had imprisoned. At any rate, their appetites seemed to be excellent,
anything was acceptable as bait, and Delbert was now and then
successful in spearing one.

They worked another day on the banana-patch, thinning it out and
letting in the sunlight, and another in dragging more brush up to the
Cave to shade and shelter it, and in carrying up more dried banana
leaves for their bed.

Then Marian said she was ready to go on an exploring expedition.

So far they had gone no great way from the end of the Island where they
had landed, but now she decided the time had come to learn more of
their locality. Some of the bananas were ripe; that is, they were soft
and could be eaten. They could take them along for lunch.

Delbert was a little afraid some one might come while they were gone,
but Marian had a lead-pencil in her workbag and with it she wrote
on a smooth piece of driftwood a brief account of their predicament
which she left in a prominent position near the tree their signal flag
flapped on. To make assurance doubly sure, they put another signal flag
by the side of the notice.

Not being sure they could find water on all parts of the Island,
Marian thought it would be safest to carry some with them, but the
only thing she had to carry it in was the two-quart Mason jar that had
held Davie’s milk. They would take Mr. Cunningham’s pail, too, and
the spear and lariat and hatchet. It seemed to Marian that that was
all they would need, but Davie was very sure the dig-spoon would be
indispensable, so he carried that also.

They went along on top of the hill where Delbert had set his traps. It
was very rocky at first, but became more even and level, with fewer
rocks, and more open and grassy. There was an abundance of thorny
brush, but no trees of any size worth mentioning. This portion of the
Island they used afterwards to refer to as the pasture. Beyond it the
thorny tangle became thicker again, and here were more rocks. Indeed,
the farther end of the Island fell quite precipitously to the water
without any sandy beaches, but they could make their way down well
enough, and most of the way could follow the shoreline without wading.

The Island was fairly uniform in shape, and it looked to Marian as
if it had been broken as a whole from the mainland ages back, the
sides there being very steep and precipitous, as was the shore of the
mainland opposite. The little harbor did not seem to extend very far,
and no vessel of any size could have picked her way through behind the
Island.

The seaward side contained various little bays and coves, very
fascinating to explore, but only one of these was of any size. This
lay in such a relation to the tides and currents that it gathered more
of the flotsam and jetsam of the sea than any or all of the others,
and when its treasure possibilities were realized it was named Bonanza
Cove.

These details were not all learned in one day’s exploration, but little
by little as day after day they searched and learned.

Always supreme above all other motives was the search for food.

Every plant or root or berry that they knew to be edible they eagerly
seized upon, and Marian was constantly warning them lest they grow
careless in their selection and suffer thereby.

One day they found the burros all down by the water-hole on the
landlocked side of the Island. They had seen them before, about a dozen
in number, but had not paid much attention to them. They were grazing
peacefully on the outskirts of the banana-patch, and the children were
quick to notice that the herd had been increased by one in the last day
or two, a silky-looking little fellow with that peculiarly fascinating
quality that only a baby burro has.

In glee they ran toward them, but though the burros seemed to be not
at all wild, they plainly did not mean to permit any actual handling
and skillfully evaded all attempts in that direction. After several
ineffective attempts to round up the woolly baby, the children stopped
to rest and regain their breath, and the four-legged infant sidled up
to his mother and proceeded to lunch.

Suddenly Marian turned to her brother. “Delbert,” she said, “can you
lasso that old burro as she stands there?”

“Reckon I could if I tried. What do you want of her?”

“See that baby there fairly guzzling down the milk, and look at our
baby here without a spoonful all these days. Don’t you suppose that
old mother burro has more than that little fellow really needs in his
business? Anyway, if he had to go a little short he could make it up on
grass.”

“O--oh!” ejaculated the boy, “burro’s milk? Why, Marian, it wouldn’t be
good.”

“Indeed, my dear child, burro’s milk is a regular article of commerce
in some places, just as cow’s and goat’s milk is in others.”

“Anyway,” reflected Delbert, “if we didn’t tell him, Davie wouldn’t
know but what it was all right. Milk is milk to him; he wouldn’t care.”

“Of course not,” said Marian briskly; “you older children might object
to it, but it won’t make any difference to him whether he shares with
a baby burro or a baby calf. You just get a good loop over her head,
and we’ll try this thing out.”

[Illustration: GETTING A LOOP OVER THE MOTHER’S HEAD WAS THE EASIEST
PART OF THE BUSINESS]

As a matter of fact, getting a loop over the mother’s head was the
easiest part of the business. Delbert soon accomplished that, but Madam
Burro had no intention whatever of standing still and being milked.
Indeed, she developed quite surprising activity, and it was only after
at least an hour of patient labor that Marian was able to secure a few
spoonfuls of milk in the tin cup which the little girls brought down
from the Cave.

“Now, then,” said Marian, “the thing we have got to do is to secure the
baby. If we keep him tied here, his mother will stay around, and we
can try her again in the morning. But if he is turned loose with her,
we may not be able to get near them again.”

“But we have only one rope, and if I take it off her she will take him
right away now,” said Delbert. “Let’s keep her tied up, I should say.”

“Well, tie her up till morning. Then we can think of some other way to
do. It will not do to keep her tied all the time, for then we should
have to feed her.”

As they ate supper they discussed ways and means. They could make
palm-leaf ropes that would do very well to tie the little one with,
but that did not seem to be as convenient as Marian wanted. Finally
they decided to make a little corral to keep the baby in. Then he
could nibble at weeds and grass and could not reach his mother except
when Marian chose, and she could thus have a better chance to secure a
ration for Davie. The corral would have to be pretty solid and secure,
she thought, or the old burro might tear it down; still, it would
not have to be quite as compact as the fence that had been built at
High-Tide Pool.

[Illustration: JACKIE]

They went to work at it the next morning. A little of the old stone
wall was still solid enough to serve, but most of it was badly tumbled
down, and they could not seem to do much at building it up again. The
banana-patch could be used as one side,--it was so thick nothing would
try to go through it,--and a couple of palms could be utilized as
fence-posts. There were several nondescript bushes that could be worked
in too. The banana stalks they had already cut down could be used as
building-material, and more could be cut. They were soft and thornless,
which was an advantage; also every stalk they cut out improved the
patch by giving those remaining a better chance to grow and mature
fruit. The hatchet was getting pretty dull, but Marian managed to hack
off a number of slender stakes, which she set in the ground in pairs
just far enough apart to lay a banana stalk in between; and these
stalks all averaged about the same size and were piled one above the
other to the top of the stakes, which were then tied together with
banana-leaf stems.

The old pile of poles was overhauled. Part of them were so worm-eaten
that they fell apart in Marian’s hands, but some were of a different
kind of wood and were still solid. These were built into the fence as
children build corncob houses, and Marian was only sorry there were so
few of them. For part of it they used brush, but that was not so easily
handled as the bananas or poles because of the thorns. The corral was
not finished in one day nor in two, and when it was finished it showed
half a dozen styles of fence-pattern and had no particular shape, but
was, nevertheless, very satisfactory, as it would hold the little one
in and keep the old one out.

The little burro was easily driven into it, and then the old one was
turned loose. She grazed about during the day, and when milking-time
came Delbert could easily lasso her. Then, with much labor and great
tying of legs and an abundance of help from the children in holding of
the same, Marian would get Davie’s little portion of milk. Then the
four-legged baby was allowed to have what remained, after which he was
engineered back into the corral.

In the morning the same performance was gone through. During the day
the mother and baby could rub noses through that part of the corral
that had been made of poles, and in the course of time they both became
so tame that the little one was a pet and a playmate for the children
and the old one offered but little objection to sharing with Davie, who
used to sit on the top rail of the fence and watch the milking with
wide eyes that let no detail of the performance escape him.

He was very generous, too, considering the small amount of milk he
received, and would offer to share with the others; they would all
take a sip, even Marian, to encourage his unselfish impulses, and, as
Delbert said, for politeness’ sake.




CHAPTER IV

BONANZA COVE


It was about the time that the corral was finished that they came to
realize that they had lost count of the days and really did not know
how long they had been on the Island. They had even lost track of the
day of the week, and Marion did not know when she had ever done that
in her life before. She and Delbert sat down and figured and figured,
trying to count back and remember what had been done on each day; but
it was no use, it had been too long. Jennie, however, was quite sure
that it was Wednesday then, though she could not tell why,--she just
thought it was, that was all,--and so, assuming that she was correct in
her belief, Marian easily figured up what day of the month it was then,
for of course she knew the day and date upon which they had left home.

“Now,” she said, “we will not trust to our memories any more. Every day
I will put a notch in a stick,”--which she faithfully did, using for
the purpose a smooth stick that Delbert picked up on the beach one day.
As a matter of fact, Jennie had been mistaken and they were two days
ahead of time, but they did not know that till afterwards.

The days were filled pretty full. Marian thought that the busier they
were, the less would they be a prey to loneliness and homesickness.
They tumbled out of the Cave mornings, milked the burro, got breakfast,
and then worked awhile at something till it was time for a big sea bath.

When they first began their life on the Island, Delbert was the only
one who could swim to amount to anything. Clarence had taught him, and
he had been a very apt pupil; but the others knew so little of the
useful art that Marian herself dared not venture beyond her depth,
while the little girls declined water that was more than knee-deep and
Davie preferred it even less than that. But already there was a vast
improvement among them all. As the way to learn to walk is to get up
and walk, so the way to learn to swim is to strike out and swim, and
they were following that method.

After dinner there were walks to take, little coves to examine, or
ropes to braid. Marian watched over the children with eyes of a most
jealous, brooding love. Never had they seemed so dear to her, never so
sweet and precious. She was constantly thinking up things to amuse as
well as benefit them. Of course, she could not perform impossibilities,
and there were some doleful days. There was one perfectly awful day
when she found Jennie huddled down behind a rock, crying for her
mother. And Delbert would sit for an hour at a time on Lookout Rock,
gazing out over the water, so wistful and disconsolate that it made
Marian’s throat choke up just to see him, and she would rack her brain
for some interesting thing to set him at to keep him busy.

But it is only fair to say that the doleful spots came far less often
than one would have supposed they would. Marian was always steadfast in
her assurance that some one would find them some day. They would take
good care of each other and be as happy as they could till some one
should come and take them back to the Port. And she herself always kept
a cheerful face. Her loving voice and sunny smile, her merry little
ways, inspired confidence. As much as possible she made it appear that
a desert-island experience was a very desirable thing to have happen
to one. She twisted things till they looked like a joke, and in the
process often found herself growing as light-hearted as she wanted the
children to be.

The bill of fare was limited, to be sure, but they brought to it
appetites sharpened by the constant exercise they were taking in the
sea air and the sunshine.

One day up in the pasture they ran across a _panal_.[3] This is the
nest of a kind of wild bee and is made of the same material that our
hornets use in constructing their homes, but the bee itself is not so
large as a hornet. Marian saw the nest first and pointed it out to the
other children merely as a matter of curiosity, but Delbert straightway
became excited.

  [3] Pronounced _pah-nahlʹ_; plural, _pah-nahʹ-layss_. It is the
      regular Spanish word for honeycomb.

There was honey in that bees’ nest; he knew it; splendid honey. Hadn’t
Clarence bought some once of an Indian and given him a lot? And
Clarence had told him all about _panales_. You take all the outside
honey and comb away and leave the core, and they will build on again,
just as tame bees will.

Marian was a little dubious. Honey was all very well, but stings were
not at all desirable. How were they to proceed to get the sweet store?

“We have no bee-smoker,” she reminded him, “and if we had, there are no
rags to be burned in it.”

“Huh!” declared Delbert scornfully, “do you s’pose the Indians have
smokers?--or rags either? No, sirree! they just build a fire of trash
they gather up. Besides, the stings of these little bees don’t amount
to shucks!”

It was not in Marian’s policy to discourage him from doing anything not
actually dangerous to life and limb, and she was glad he was willing
to dare the stings; so she said they would go back to the Cave for the
little dishpan and some coals to start a smudge with, and see what they
could do.

The younger children were to keep back out of the danger zone,--which
they were very willing to do, for they did not share Delbert’s
optimism about the trifling nature of wild-bee stings,--and she and
Delbert swathed their hands and faces as well as they could and still
be able to work handily. They built three little fires about the bush
the nest was in, and gathered trash and piled it on till they were all
smoking finely. With a forked pole Marian raked one of them as nearly
under the nest as she could, and then, holding her skirts carefully so
that they should not swing into the fire, she began the task of robbing
the little bees.

Delbert held the pan, and she cut off layer after layer of the
paper-like comb filled with the clear sweet liquid, but she was careful
to leave a goodly portion at the center for the bees to begin on anew.
Then they retreated with their booty, threw a towel over it, and gave
it to Jennie and Esther to carry off, while they raked back and stamped
out the fires and threw dirt over the ashes, so that they could not
start up again.

During the whole performance both of them had received stings, but, as
Delbert said, they did not amount to much, and certainly honey never
tasted sweeter.

[Illustration: THE TASK OF ROBBING THE LITTLE BEES]

From then on the children’s eyes were always open for _panales_. They
found two small nests that they decided to let alone till they were
larger, and about a week later they found one down near the shore that
yielded even more honey than the first. They got several stings, too,
and Marian smiled grimly as she reflected how necessity was teaching
them hardihood.

That was the day they discovered the riches of Bonanza Cove.

They had never gone down into it before, having always skirted it quite
a way up on the hill, for there was no sand at that part, only ragged
rocks with broken shells and barnacles, interspersed with occasional
clumps of mango bushes,--certainly not easy ground for little feet to
run over. But this day, as they were returning home with the little
dishpan of luscious sweetness, Esther had declared, “I see a bottle”;
and on the strength of that declaration they climbed down into the
cove, for a bottle would be a very valuable thing to have. And, once
there, they found so many valuable things that they gathered up a load
and carried it home and went back in the afternoon for more.

The bottle proved to be a quart beer-bottle that some one had doubtless
tossed, corked but empty, over some steamer’s side, and careful search
revealed six others, besides the remains of several that had been
broken. Marian hailed them with delight. Now they could carry water in
bottles when they went exploring, and leave her precious glass jar safe
at the Cave. She had always been afraid it would get broken on some of
those trips. Five of the seven bottles were only pints, but were none
the less eagerly welcomed and treasured.

Also there was discovered in a clump of mango bushes, half buried in
the mud, an old broken five-gallon demijohn. The basketwork enclosing
it was nearly intact, and Marian thought they might use it for
something some time.

The wreck of an old barrel was also rescued from the mud. Only three of
its staves were gone. Who knew what might not some time be done with
what remained? Several rusty tin cans were acquired. Marian could mend
them by drawing a tiny rag through the holes in them; and Esther came
up with a piece of scrap iron that might be made into a spear-head if
a body only knew how; Delbert knew Clarence could have done it all
right. They found three little boards, too, and an old shoe whose top
was not yet stiff. Besides all this, there were innumerable armloads
of driftwood. They gathered it up into piles beyond the reach of high
tides.

But the most exciting discovery of all was the remains of an old canoe.
One side and a goodly portion of the bottom were gone, but it was
undeniably a canoe. It had been tossed up on the rocks by some storm
and had lain bleaching in the sun ever since. Nothing would do but
Delbert must get that old fragment into the water. They all caught his
enthusiasm and worked with a will.

The canoe was of native manufacture, having been hollowed out from
one big log, and what was left of it seemed to be quite solid. After
they had it floating they hunted up poles and practiced the art of
navigation for a while. It was a clumsy thing, and of course everybody
connected with it got wet, but already Delbert had visions of what it
might lead to.

“Marian,” he said, “let’s pile a lot of that wood on this and take it
around that way. It will be a lot easier than carrying it over.”

“The waves are too high,” she objected, “and we should have to tie the
wood on good and solid, for the way this thing dips and tips and turns
it would all be off before we were out of the cove.”

“The waves are high,” he conceded, “and, of course, we should have to
tie the wood on. This thing won’t stay anywhere. What’s left of it
knows it used to be the side and it doesn’t understand that it is the
bottom now.”

“I’ll tell you,” she said; “let’s wait till to-morrow. Maybe the wind
will not pile the waves quite so high then, and we can tie your rope
to it. See there is the hole in the prow they made to moor it by, and
we can tow it round, if you like. That is splendid wood and it will
certainly be easier getting it home that way than carrying it up over
the hill.”

But Delbert was not quite satisfied.

“I’ll tell you,” he said; “if we can get it around the point there, we
can take it the other way, in back of the Island. It’s a lot longer
way, but there are no breakers in there.”

“I guess we could do it that way all right. So let’s go back now and
braid palm-leaf ropes the rest of to-day, so as to have plenty to tie
the wood with, and hunt up some nice poles and paddles; and to-morrow
early we will come and take this gallant bark round into harbor.”

So they beached it again, and piled stones in it so it could not get
away, and then went back to the home end of the Island.

Mexicans make a very good rope of twisted palm-leaves, but our
islanders had not learned how yet, and so braided them instead, for
even the children could do that. For a large rope they simply took
three of the small ones and braided them together. The finished
articles were very knobby, uneven affairs, of course, and could not be
used to lasso with, but they were flexible and strong and served to tie
things. They had quite a number of these ropes of home manufacture.

In the morning, after attending to the burro and eating a breakfast of
fish baked in the hot coals, they filled the two big bottles and three
of the little ones with water, tied stout little palm-leaf strings to
them, so that each person could easily carry one, and started out with
their ropes and poles.

Marian had Mr. Cunningham’s pail with more fish for their dinner, and
the hatchet also, and Davie as usual flourished the dig-spoon. He soon
got tired of carrying his bottle of water and passed it over to Marian,
who put it into the pail.

At the cove they put the pail and their bottles into a clump of mango
bushes and began to gather up the best and biggest of the wood. Marian
made compact bundles of it and lashed them as best she could to what
remained of the old canoe. Alone it would not stay in any position
that made it navigable, but reinforced by the bundles of wood on what
Delbert called the “absent” side of the craft, it floated as any
other mass of wooden wreckage would have floated and maintained an
equilibrium which allowed the children to perch on top in safety.

Delbert scratched his head.

“This isn’t a canoe and it isn’t a raft. What in creation is it,
anyway, Marian?”

“I reckon it’s a float,” she answered.

So, after the pail had been placed on the safest spot, where it would
not get water splashed into it, and after Jennie had received explicit
instructions to watch over it, the voyage began. They had taken the
precaution to put on their bathing-suits and expected to do as much
wading and swimming as anything else.

Marian knew a good deal about rowing and sailing a boat, but this was a
different matter. To begin with, they had only one really good pole.
The other was too short, besides being crooked, and their craft swung
round and twisted and did its best to wobble its way back to the beach.
At last, however, they got out quite a way, beyond the depth of the
shortest pole, but when they came to round the point there was trouble
again. Finally Marian jumped off and, half swimming, half wading to
shore with the lariat, towed them round the point; and then, because
they made better progress that way, accomplished most of the rest of
the journey so.

[Illustration: THE VOYAGE BEGAN]

Davie also preferred to do most of his traveling on his own feet, and
Marian did not blame him, for the float did not even look like a safe
craft, and the way it wobbled and bobbed might well have made an older
passenger than Davie uneasy. So he trudged on, mostly in the edge of
the water, now and then whimpering when he hurt his bare toes and again
laughing gleefully at some treasure of the sea which the fates cast at
his feet.

[Illustration: MARIAN TOWED THEM ROUND THE POINT]

At some places it was not convenient to tow the float, and then they
resorted to poling altogether. At one or two points Delbert took the
rope and swam across to a better place for pulling. And several times
the bundles of wood became loosened, and all hands had to retire to
shore till Marian could get them satisfactorily retied.

Altogether, their progress was so slow that the day was nearly done
before they moored their gallant craft to the little rock pier behind
the Island.

Next day they tried it another way. They took all the wood off and
allowed the old fragment to turn turtle. That did a great deal better
in some ways, but it was a little difficult to get aboard of it. Once
they were aboard, however, it sustained the weight of them all well
enough, though, of course, there was no freeboard at all, and, while it
was willing to remain in that position, the ends of the canoe, being
well under water, offered considerable resistance and made it more
difficult to pole than a boat or raft would have been.

Jennie thought Marian had better cut off those ragged ends and leave
only the smooth side, but Marian was not anxious to attempt such a
task as that with only a dull hatchet and a few knives to work with.
Besides, she was not sure at all but she would some day want those ends
right where they were. She could not think of any way of improving it,
and even as it was it enlarged the horizon of their daily lives.

The prow being under water, they could not very well use the hole
in it to tie the rope to, but at one place in the bottom there was
a knothole, and Marian firmly wedged a stick into that. With a rope
fastened to this stick they could tie the canoe where it would float
out quite a little distance from shore, and then they could swim out to
it. She soon found her little flock were improving in their swimming
lessons. With the old canoe at hand it did not matter so much if one
did get beyond one’s depth a little; it gave one security.

Then pretty soon, when they began to get the knack of making the old
thing move along in the water where they wanted it to, they would go
out to the little sandbars and reefs that had before been beyond their
reach.

Some of these had mango bushes where a certain variety of small oyster
attached themselves to the stems and rocks, where they could be easily
gathered at low tide. One had an outcropping of rock in one place which
had several basin-like depressions, which Marian cleaned out and made
use of. She would boil down sea-water in her kettle, till it was about
a saturated solution, and then put it into the demijohn, and when
that was full would take it over and empty it into those shallow rock
basins, where the sun evaporated it till nothing was left but the salt.

Close on the heels of the food problem had come that of clothing.
Marian thanked her stars that the soil of the Island was sandy and
brushed off easily, but even with that in their favor they had not been
on the Island so very long before their clothing sadly needed washing.
She put her whole flock into their bathing-suits and washed everything
else. But that made such inroads on her lone cake of soap that she
decided things must do without soap in the future, and what dirt would
not come out with water and sunshine would have to stay in. That went
sorely against the grain, for Mrs. Hadley was a notoriously neat and
clean woman and had trained her daughter in her own spick-and-span
ways; but it could not be helped.

Before long it became plain that the question of washing was not
all there was to it either. Clothes constantly worn will in time
wear out, and Marian’s little flock soon became shabby as well as
dingy. She staved off the evil day for a while by decreeing that the
bathing-suits must be worn all the time, and so the other clothes were
folded away up at the Cave, to await the blest day when some one should
wander into San Moros and take them all back to the Port.

The children were willing enough. It did away with the need of dressing
and undressing, for they had so little bedding that Marian let them
sleep in their suits too. Davie could not see any use in clothes
anyway, except when he was cold. Before long he rebelled against even
the little bathing-suit, and as there was no one to see and criticize,
his sister let him run from morning till night absolutely naked. He was
so fat and dimpled and sweet that the other children liked him best
that way, and his little body became so tanned that Marian called him a
little Indian, and because he strutted about in such a lordly way she
dubbed him Hiawatha. That tickled Delbert, who then tied his little
brother’s hair in tufts and stuck them full of feathers.

Delbert himself began to need the barber’s services, but when Jennie
told him so one day he declared he was not going to have his hair cut,
he was going to let it grow long and make fishlines of it.

“You’ll look fine,” said she, scornfully; “a boy with pigtails; you’d
better cut it, Marian.”

But Marian, with a mental vision of how fine he would look after she
had barbered him with the buttonhole scissors, decided in favor of
pigtails.

So Delbert tied a string about his forehead, stuck feathers in it, and
demanded an Indian name. Marian named him Chingachgook. Of course the
little girls wanted Indian names too, so she told Jennie she could be
Wahtawah and Esther Pocahontas.

They were very much pleased and went straightway to hunt up some
feathers, though Delbert declared that squaws never wore them.

“Never mind,” said Marian soothingly, “these squaws can do anything
they have a mind to.”

She herself did not adopt a name, but Delbert used to call her the
great squaw chief.

As for shelter, they never found on the Island a better place than that
which they had fortunately secured the first night. The bat cave near
the water’s edge was the only other cave of any considerable size, and
nothing else would have afforded any security whatever from a storm.
Whenever it was convenient, Marian reinforced the brush shade in front
of the Cave. She had it good and thick now, but of course it would
not have turned a rain. The nights were getting cooler, and she cast
about for ways and means of getting more bedding. She pounded sticks
and dried banana leaves into the Cave where it ran back and became
too narrow for their feet. She blocked up the sides with rocks and
pieces of driftwood and filled in the chinks with little wads of banana
leaves, so that the wind was shut out better. She saved the feathers
from the birds they killed, and tied them up in the little girls’
petticoats for pillows, and she saved every rabbit-skin and stretched
it out so that it dried smoothly, scraping it as clean as she could,
and when it was almost dry, rubbed and worked it till it was soft and
pliable. This, of course, was not the same as having them tanned, but
she did not know how to tan leather, much as she wished she did.

After she had learned how to keep herself supplied with salt, she used
to rub that on the fresh skins when she stretched them out to dry,
believing that was one good step toward preserving them. When she had
quite a number all finished up in this manner, she trimmed the edges a
little and sewed them together. In the course of time she would have a
robe large enough to cover them all, and as long as she could keep it
dry it would not spoil.

Delbert was interested in bows and arrows. His first efforts at making
bows were not startling successes, by any means, and he soon turned
them over to Wahtawah and Pocahontas and tried for better ones for
himself. At first he used any and every kind of a straight smooth
stick he ran across, and it seemed almost impossible to find any that
combined the necessary straightness and strength, but when he finally
caught the idea of making them of palm-leaf stems, which are very tough
and strong, he evolved one that would actually shoot quite effectively.

Then his sisters straightway clamored for good bows also, and he must
needs make for them too. He was at first a little scornful, but Marian
advised that he arm them as well as possible, for while the chances
of their bagging any game were slim in any case, there was simply no
chance at all with bows that were only toys. Bowstrings were made from
Marian’s hair, but arrow-points were a puzzling problem. The boys at
the Port had tipped their arrows with heavy wire, but wire was not an
Island commodity. Marian suggested bone, and a few were made of that
material, but it was so very hard to work, and the knives needed so
much whetting, that they were constantly on the lookout for something
easier. Finally they learned to make them of wood hardened in the fire.

The first bows made were now Davie’s property, and he was so reckless
with his shooting that Marian forbade points of any description being
put on his arrows. He did not seem to mind the omission,--he never hit
anything except by accident, and then it was usually one of the other
children, and they were all careful not to call his attention to the
fact that his arrows were all blunt.

Davie was the only one who was not at times more or less depressed by
their situation. He was so little, and had now been separated from
his mother so long, that he never fretted for her. Marian had always
taken the most of the care of him anyway, so as long as she was there
to do it he considered that conditions were normal. He found life
very interesting and satisfactory and felt no need of more extensive
society. His comical baby ways were closely watched and intensely
enjoyed by the other children, who loved him dearly, and they would
eagerly report to Marian everything funny he did when she was not
present. Even when he was naughty, which he occasionally was, they were
rather apt to overlook it and laugh at the funny spectacle he made of
himself. Delbert, though, would get provoked sometimes.

One trick the little fellow had when His Majesty was displeased was to
hide the whetstone. This was a stone which he himself had picked up
out on one of the salt reefs. It was a little different from any other
that they had found and was splendid to sharpen the knives and hatchet
with. Delbert used to make quite an ado over borrowing it from Davie,
because it pleased him so to have something apparently so valuable to
lend. Marian, too, was careful to say, “Please lend me your whetstone,
Davie,” before she rubbed her knife over it, and as a rule he would
beamingly give permission. That and the dig-spoon were about the only
things that were considered especially his, and as it was not often
that any one else used the dig-spoon, he did not bother much about it;
but when he felt naughty he would conceal the little stone and refuse
to reveal its whereabouts.

Sometimes Delbert would use some other stone then, or he would coolly
wait until Davie got over his pouts and brought forth the good one, or
else he would slyly hunt it up and use it without Davie’s knowledge,
carefully replacing it when he had finished.

But one day he could not find it, and Davie simply would not get it.
Marian herself wanted it too, but Davie resisted even her coaxing.
Delbert lost all patience, and Marian began to wonder on the second day
if some measure more strenuous than common might not be needed. She
began to think that perhaps the child himself did not know where it
was; it might possibly be that he had lost it instead of hiding it. He
was so little and his speech was so limited as yet that she did not
always feel sure that she understood him perfectly. Perhaps he simply
did not want to admit that he had not been bright enough to keep track
of the valuable thing himself. But then Esther saw him playing with the
stone off by himself. When she ran to tell Marian, however, he hid it
again and only smiled impishly at their requests.

No, he was simply being naughty, and, what was worse, was staying
naughty; so after a little Marian issued her verdict.

“I won’t punish him, though I could probably make him get it by
spanking him, but mother never did that to him, and I will not till I
really have to, but the next time any of you see that whetstone you may
take it from him and I will confiscate it and it won’t be his stone any
more.”

“But,” said Jennie dubiously, “it _is_ his stone; he found it, Marian.”

“That is true,” returned her sister, “and if it were some less
necessary thing I would say he had a right to do as he chose with it,
but a whetstone is something we all need. I need it to sharpen the
hatchet with; nothing else I can find does so well. Delbert needs it
right now to sharpen his knife, so he can work out that bone arrowhead.
It is to Davie’s interest as well as ours that the hatchet and knives
should be sharp, only he is so little he can’t realize it. Just because
he saw the stone first does not give him a right to hide it away and
refuse to let us use it, when we all need the use of it and there is
not another one like it that we know of.”

She explained this all as well as she could to Davie, but he remained
obdurate. They set themselves to work, therefore, to ferret out the
much-needed implement, and before long Delbert found it and brought it
in triumph to Marian, who took possession of it amid Davie’s loud wails.

His crying availed him nothing, however; the stone was put in a cleft
of the rock where only Marian and Delbert could reach it, and the
young would-be monopolist finally decided that it was not worth crying
for, and, smoothing out his face, trotted about his affairs as sweetly
important as ever.




CHAPTER V

THE EGG ISLANDS


It was now growing close to that time so dear to children’s
hearts,--and grown people’s, too, for that matter,--namely, Christmas.

The Hadleys had always made much of it, and, hampered as she was,
Marian determined to celebrate in some manner. She had had to let
Thanksgiving go by unnoticed, for the especial rite of that day is a
loaded dinner-table, and she had bowed to the inevitable, but, though
good dinners are in order of a Christmas Day, they are not the entire
programme, and Marian’s fertile brain grew busy.

In her workbag was the roll of fine lawn of which she had been making
handkerchiefs. One was partly made, and with careful planning there was
enough material to make three more, leaving a few little scraps. In
off moments, when the children were engaged in making love to the baby
burro or busy at play on the beach, she hemmed the handkerchiefs, and
then with her colored silks outlined Mother Goose pictures on them and
wrote the children’s names in the corners. So far, so good.

Then she constructed three little dolls, each doll being made of one
straight bone with a knob at one end that would do for the head, with a
wishbone tied below to make the arms. One doll had wishbone legs too,
but that exhausted the supply of wishbones, and the other two had to
be content with legs that were not so nicely matched. Faces and hair
she made with the lead-pencil, and little suits of underwear from the
scraps of lawn, and she cut a piece out of the ruffle of her colored
petticoat for the dresses and three cunning little sunbonnets. For
Delbert she whittled out a little boat about three inches long and
rigged it out with silken ropes and a lawn sail.

On Christmas Eve she gathered them about her in front of their fire up
by the Cave, and told them Christmas stories till they were sleepy,
and, to their glee, had them hang up their stockings before they
crawled into the Cave and cuddled into bed.

Somewhat to her surprise, they insisted that she hang up her stocking
too, which she did, wondering much what they had planned to surprise
her with, for she knew now, by their dancing eyes and loving voices,
that they had planned something, though she had not noticed anything
mysterious in their behavior before.

In the morning she was careful to go down to the well for a pail
of water the first thing, so as to give them a chance to fill her
stocking, and, sure enough, upon her return she found it full to
overflowing.

It seemed that for several weeks back Delbert and the little girls had
been saving every pretty shell and feather they found for this purpose
and they had accumulated a large assortment.

Shells, feathers, crabs’ claws and seaweed,--how sharp their bright
eyes had been to spy out every pretty thing they passed! How
industriously the little hands had gathered!

Marian’s heart swelled. How she praised that collection! And
straightway after breakfast she hunted up a nice, safe, dry little
cleft in the rock, a sort of a baby cave, where she arranged them all,
sorting the feathers and tying them in bunches, and when all was in
order fitted one of the little boards they had found in the cove in
front for a door, so nothing should disturb the treasures.

That morning, out on one of the salt reefs, they found a log in among
the mango bushes, where it had hitherto lain unseen. Marian judged that
it had been tossed there by the storm the night of their arrival, for
it did not appear to have lain there so very long.

Of course, they worked and tugged till they had it in the water, and it
was so much of an improvement over the old canoe that they straightway
discarded that,--Marian later working it into the corral,--and every
day they went out on the log.

It floated in shallower water than the canoe and was easily poled or
paddled wherever they wished to go, but it had two drawbacks; first,
it had nothing to which the rope could be tied to moor it,--but that
really did not matter much for they could roll it up on the beach out
of reach of the water; but for the second, it was so round and smooth
that it was forever rolling over and spilling some one off into the
water, and this drawback simply had to be put up with.

One morning, down in the cove, Delbert found a small watermelon.
Probably it had been lost overboard from some steamer passing by out
in the Gulf, for it was many a long league to where such things were
grown, yet in any case it seemed a wonderful thing that, with all that
waste of tossing water, that little melon, scarce as large as Marian’s
head, should have drifted into San Moros and then into their cove. It
was ripe and they ate it, gnawing down the rind to the very outside.
Ordinarily Marian would not have allowed that, but so small a melon
divided into five pieces did not give a very large piece to each one,
and they were hungry for something besides animal food, and had not
found a really _good_ bunch of bananas yet.

They saved the seeds of the melon and decided to plant a patch with
them, though they hoped to be rescued long before they could eat of the
fruits of their labor. To plant the patch would give them something new
to do, and perhaps some one else would be benefited by the crop even if
they were not.

Marian had never been much of a gardener, but she thought the long,
low, sandy point would be a good place to plant, for by digging down a
little there they would reach soil that was always damp with the fresh
water underneath; so the garden would not need irrigation, and she had
heard some one say that sandy soil was good for melons.

Delbert remembered reading in his history that the North American
Indians used to put a fish in each hill of corn for fertilizer, and he
wanted to try it. But fish were not so easily secured as to warrant
that; they were growing scarce in High-Tide Pool, and in other places
they were not very hungry somehow, and it was rare, indeed, when
Delbert could manage to spear one with his one-pronged spear.

However, the traps were gathering in rabbits pretty frequently, and
the discarded portions of these could be used instead. So they planted
their melon-patch, digging holes down to the damp soil and planting the
seeds in the bottoms with a little fertilizer near. Marian saved half
the seeds in case the planting should not prosper and should have to be
done over again.

When they had finished that labor and were proudly viewing their neat
rows of melon holes, Delbert suddenly exclaimed, “Say, Marian! I bet I
know where we could get some more vegetable seeds.”

“For pity’s sake, where?”

“In my coat pocket. Don’t you remember when Bobbie’s father sent off
for seeds, and they were so long in coming, and the rats had got to ’em
somewhere on the road and chewed holes in the papers, and the seeds
were all spilling out? Well, I helped Bobbie carry them home from the
office, and we put them in our coat pockets, some of them, and I’ll bet
there are some of those seeds in my pockets yet.”

Straight they went to the Cave and turned every pocket wrong side out
over a white cloth and with miserly care saved every tiny seed that
fell. There was in all nearly a teaspoonful. Marian separated them,
putting each kind in a clamshell by itself.

There were seven kinds. One was peas; there were just three of them.
They were not sure of the others, though Jennie rather thought one kind
was eggplant, and Marian was pretty sure another was onions.

Down in a corner by the bananas was the place chosen for this second
planting. They built a fence around it, a rather frail affair, but
specially designed to keep out rabbits, and they sprinkled the beds
twice a day. All three of the peas sprouted, but something ate them
up. What Marian had thought was onions never came up at all, but the
remaining five kinds all sprouted and grew well, and though their ranks
were diminished by various bugs and birds,--for Marian could not be on
guard every minute of the time,--there were a few plants of each kind
that survived all accidents.

Jennie’s eggplant turned out to be big sweet peppers; the other plants
proved to be turnip, carrots, lettuce, and--poppies. Delbert could
never understand about that last, for he was very sure Bobbie’s father
had sent only for vegetable seeds, but Marian thought Bobbie’s mother
had probably had something to do with the list of seeds ordered.

The melons did best of all. There were so few of the others that Marian
vetoed all eating till the seeds could be gathered, but the melon-patch
produced abundantly, so that they did not have to worry about seeds,
but began eating as soon as the centers were pinkish, and only saved
seeds from the best ones that came later.

But long before the melons were ripe, their scanty larder had been
replenished from a totally different direction.

“Marian,” Delbert had said, “those little white-looking islands away
down the bay are duck islands. Clarence told me so, and I can see the
ducks going to them every day. Wish we could go there; duck eggs are
good, I tell you.”

Away down San Moros they could see them, two little islands, mere
trifles compared with Smugglers’, and so far away that ordinarily
Marian would not have wasted a moment on thoughts of a journey there,
but eggs, perhaps young ducks, and here were her hungry little crew
gazing wistfully. “Ducks” the children called them, and it was not till
long afterward that they learned that the birds were really cormorants.
If they had known this at the time, they might not have been so hungry
for the eggs, but cormorants’ eggs, like the eggs of other seabirds,
are not uneatable when one is hungry enough, and they are often eaten
by fishermen.

The young girl thought and studied and made ropes and looked toward the
“duck islands.” Every morning long lines of birds went out from them to
the sea; every evening long lines came back.

On those two islands thousands of these “ducks” were nesting.

All of her charges could swim now; even Davie could help himself a
little in the water. If only the log did not turn over in the water so
easily and often! If that could be remedied, Marian thought they might
risk the voyage. She and Delbert could easily steer the craft now. They
had picked and chosen among the few poles at their disposal, till they
had three that seemed pretty good,--one longish one for poling, two
others that served in a fashion as paddles. Jennie and Esther could use
them a little.

Then a full week was spent in cutting down banana plants and fixing
them in the corral fence so as to release the poles that were in it,
and this was the time too when the old canoe was put into the fence.

Those big poles, though not nearly so large as the log, were now laid
parallel to it and tightly lashed on, making an extension on each side
that would prevent the log rolling over, so that, while they could
not ride on it and keep dry, they could at least ride it in safety.
They could not now roll the craft up the beach, but it could easily be
moored by tying a rope to one of the poles. Good ropes were scarce,
though; it had taken the best ones to lash the queer raft together.

Marian’s mind was now fully made up for the venture. They started
early. The old barrel was tied on, also the broken demijohn. Fire
to cook their dinner with was a question. Marian did not want to
risk taking the matches for fear they would get wet by some unlucky
accident, so she put a quantity of ashes in the barrel and buried some
good half-burned brands in them. And because they did not know for sure
whether they would find wood on the “duck islands” or not, they took
along a little bundle of sticks too. They had learned that the trunks
of the banana plants contain a tough, strong fiber, and they were using
this for tying, where short strings were wanted.

Their breakfast consisted of cold boiled cottontail left over from
supper and a few small and very inferior bananas. These they ate on
the raft after they had started, and they drank from the bottles of
water which had also been put into the old barrel. It was not a very
ample meal, and they turned longing eyes on the distant islands. It was
devoutly to be hoped that food was plenty there.

The sea was very smooth; Marian would not have started if it had not
been. The raft was easily paddled along, and she soon lost the few
nervous misgivings with which she began the trip, but she also soon
decided that she would never make it again till she had studied up some
way of putting up a sail. She was quite sure that Clarence would have
done it, and it did seem as if it would take forever to get across that
stretch of water.

However, they reached their destination before noon, and, drawing
their odd craft up on a bit of beach, they took everything ashore and
hunted a good place for a fire. Having found one, they carefully drew
the embers from their bed of ashes and, with much coaxing and blowing
and pulling of handfuls of dried grass, finally got a little blaze
started, and then they hung the kettle over it with water to heat for
the eggs which they then went to hunt.

[Illustration: THE GROUND WAS COVERED WITH THE ROUGH NESTS]

They had to climb a little to reach the eggs, but there were certainly
plenty of them when they got there. The ground was covered with the
rough nests,--just a few sticks with no art in the construction,--but
there were hundreds upon hundreds of them, far beyond the children’s
power to count. There were eggs in all stages of incubation from
fresh-laid to fully hatched, and awkward squabs tumbled about, while
the air was rent by the discordant cries of the older ones.

The unpleasant odor arising was so strong that Jennie sickened
and quickly retreated to the beach below, where the fresh air was
untainted, but Esther and Davie were undaunted by the noise or the
smell and remained to be taught the difference between fresh eggs and
stale ones. The eggs were smaller than the ordinary hen’s egg, being
more slender and pointed, with a pale-blue chalkiness, which was not so
apparent in eggs that had been for some time sat upon.

Neither Delbert nor Marian had seen these islands before or any others
like them, but Clarence had, and they remembered his teaching and soon
had all the fresh eggs they could carry away. Delbert also picked out a
couple of half-grown squabs, whose necks he wrung as soon as he reached
the beach; and soon they had their kettle full of eggs simmering, while
the squabs roasted before the fire.

[Illustration: DELBERT PICKED OUT A COUPLE OF HALF-GROWN SQUABS]

Cormorants’ eggs have a slight fishy flavor, but the Hadley appetite
did not stick at that, nor at the fact that the white does not
coagulate solid, but remains a quivering jelly of a pale-green color,
through which the yellow yolk can be plainly seen. The flavor of the
squabs, too, might not have been appreciated at Delmonico’s, but
Marian’s company was not so fastidious as some people are. That which
could be eaten they ate without ado.

And after they had eaten all they wanted, they examined the island.
There was nothing of importance upon it but the birds and the eggs.
There was some driftwood, to be sure, which they threw up on the high
banks out of reach of the tides, in case they might want it some time;
and down on the narrow little beaches the children found great numbers
of little clamshells, from the size of Davie’s little fingernail up
to as large as a quarter, and of various assorted colors, which they
gathered with great enjoyment.

Their fire at home having been carefully covered as usual, they did not
need to take any embers back with them, and so used the ashes to pack
eggs in, putting into the barrel and the old demijohn all they thought
they could use up before they would spoil. It took several trips up
to the nests to get enough, and they took a dozen half-grown squabs
as well. These, with their legs tied together, were also put into the
barrel, where in spite of all precautions they managed to break quite a
number of eggs before they were landed at Smugglers’.

As it chanced, they had a tide in their favor on the way home, and
they arrived in good time. They carried their eggs up to the Cave and
they picketed the squabs out, tying each one where it could not get
entangled with its neighbors.

Their supper consisted of eggs and some quail that had got into the
traps during their absence, and as they sat about their cozy fire up at
the Cave, Marian felt that the day had been well spent.

It took considerable planning to contrive a sail for the raft. To begin
with, there was nothing at all suitable for a mast, and, secondly,
there was nothing suitable for a sail. The hatchet, too, was by this
time very dull and needed a great deal of sharpening. Delbert said he
had seen Indian canoes with an oar for a mast and a blanket for a sail,
and they could use a blanket also and perhaps could make shift with a
pole of some description in lieu of an oar; but even then it needed
ropes, and they had used all theirs in lashing the raft together, and
there were no more palm-leaves till more should grow. It was then they
resorted to banana fiber entirely. It took considerable time to work it
out nice and clean, but they finally got serviceable ropes of it. With
a great deal of bracing and tying of crooked poles, they succeeded at
last in rigging up a sail that very materially assisted them in making
several other trips to the bird islands before the nesting-season was
over.

But to carry live coals with them when they went away from the home
island was a nuisance, and Marian did not want to use the matches
except in case of absolute necessity. Besides, there was danger of
getting them wet if they were taken on the raft, for nothing on that
craft was sure of not receiving a bath sooner or later on every trip,
and often everything and everybody got ducked several times; even what
was in the barrel was not always secure.

The children wanted Marian to try building a fire with the crystal of
her watch, but she did not want to take that off for fear of getting
dirt in the works.

“But there are other ways,” she told them. “Our grandparents used to
make fire with a flint and steel. Let’s watch for flints.”

“Why, I’ve got a flint now in my pocket,” said Jennie. “Carmelita gave
it to me. She said her father lit his cigarettes with it, but he had
bought him another one.” She produced a bit of stone as big as the end
of her thumb.

Marian examined it.

“This is too small,” she said. “It has been used till it is nearly all
chipped away; there is hardly enough of it left to hang on to.”

“Why won’t any stone do?” asked Jennie, as she pocketed her treasure.

“I guess because flint is harder than other stone. It has to be hard
enough to shave off a little shaving of steel you know. That is what
the spark is, a tiny shaving of steel that is afire.”

“Where’d we get steel?” asked Esther.

“Oh, the knives are all steel.”

“And the dig-spoon?”

“No, that is only iron. It isn’t just the same thing, Pocahontas, and
I’m sure if we keep our eyes open we can find little pieces of flint
that will do.”

That, indeed, was not difficult. They soon had a collection of bits of
flint, some of which, indeed, were actual arrowheads dropped in some
age long gone by.

Then Marian tried over and over to strike sparks from the bits of flint
and the backs of the knives; sometimes a weak little spark would fly
out only to disappear immediately, and no kindling she could get would
ignite. They had seen Mexicans light their cigarettes by this method
time and again, but the Mexican has a prepared wick which catches the
spark and burns on till it is put out.

Marian tried to make a wick from strips of rag torn from the towel, but
it was of no avail. She was not very successful in striking a spark in
the first place, and she never could retain one for a second after it
was struck.

“I believe we’ve got to be more primitive still,” she said to Delbert.
“The real wild Indian makes his fire by rubbing two sticks together.”

Something distracted her attention then, and she thought no more about
it till Delbert came to her a half-hour later, flushed and tired and
disgusted.

“Marian,” he said, “I don’t believe any Indian _ever_ made two sticks
light by rubbing them together!”

“Have you been trying it?” she asked.

“Yes, and I’ve rubbed and rubbed and _rubbed_, and they don’t light at
all.” He showed the sticks that he had been rubbing broadside against
broadside till they were quite nicely polished.

Marian had to laugh.

“Dear boy, they don’t do it that way,” she said. “I don’t know that I
can do it, but I saw it done once. I truly did. Do you remember that
man--I don’t suppose you do, though, you were so little, but he was
uncle to the lady that lived in the white house just across the stream
there where we lived before Ronald died.”

“I remember the white house,” said Delbert, “and the lady,--Mrs.
Walton, wasn’t it? She had the funny cats with long hair and she always
had pink ribbons on their necks.”

“Angora cats. Yes, I remember she had a couple. Well, her uncle came
to visit her once, and he had been agent or something out on an Indian
reservation, and he knew all kinds of Indian things that the Walton
boys wanted to know, and so he used to tell them about these things,
and I took it all in whenever I was there. He knew how to scalp a dead
enemy, and how to tie a live one to a horse so he couldn’t get away. I
remember those two things distinctly, and he explained about smoking a
peace pipe, and how to tell which way you were going when you got lost,
and also--how to make a fire with two sticks.”

“Well, I just want you to show me; that’s all!”

“All right, we’ll try it. That man told just what kind of wood to use,
but I’ve forgotten that, and probably we couldn’t get the same kind
anyway. I guess this piece will do to begin with, and if it doesn’t
work we’ll try some other kind. Now, it wants a nice smooth, round
stick. Give me your knife; I can whittle better with it than I can with
the other one. Let me see, it needs a--where is that broken bottle that
Davie was playing with that just had the rounded bottom left on it?
That’s it. You see, now, we have this stick about a foot long, and we
smooth one end off nicely, and we make the other one pointed, then we
make a little notch in this other stick and down like that. Where is
your bow? I believe that is too big. Give me Jennie’s and tighten the
string on it. Now I put this big stick with the notches down where I
can hold it firm with my foot, so, and take a turn of the bowstring
around the little round stick, so, and--give me that piece of bottle--I
put it over the top end of the round stick so it can revolve smoothly,
which it could not do in the palm of my hand,--at least, not without
wearing my hand out,--and I fit the pointed end into the top notch I
made in the other stick, so. Now, you will see how quick we’ll have a
fire here.”

She started drawing the bow back and forth, thereby twirling the stick
first one way and then the other, and she whirled and whirled and
whirled it till her arm fairly ached; but nothing came of it. She took
a rest and tried again. This time she produced smoke and charred the
sticks a little, but still no fire.

“Perhaps it isn’t the right kind of wood,” said Delbert.

That was the beginning of their effort to make fire without matches.
It was fascinating. With some sticks the smoke would curl up thick and
white till Marian’s eyes fairly smarted with it, but no fire appeared.
Delbert tried it, the little girls tried it, and Davie, with great
gravity and earnestness, tried it too.

They whittled sticks constantly in the endeavor to get one just right.
Then the craze died out for a few days; but it was taken up again.
Marian was sure that she was doing it just as the Walton’s boys’ uncle
had done it, and he had produced fire in a very short time,--not more
than a minute, she was sure. She studied over the problem. It seemed as
if with so much smoke and charring it simply must ignite, but it did
not. She would rub and rub, till there would be a teaspoonful of brown
powdered wood at the foot of her downward notch, but never a spark.
She would drop the implements in disgust and go at something else, but
always next day, or the next, she returned to them and tried again.

She had seen it done and she herself could produce a little wreath of
smoke, while her implements grew hot and actually charred. She tried
with every kind of driftwood that seemed different from what she had
used before, and while up in the pasture she would cut sticks from the
different growing shrubs and dry them in the hot sun to experiment
with. Then, one day, as she watched the little pile of black powder
fall from her twirling stick, she saw a bit of it turn to a red glow
and knew that she had succeeded.

How they scurried for kindlings and coaxed that tiny bit of brightness!
It glowed and glowed till all the black powder was burned, and then it
went out. Well, having once done it, of course she could do it again,
and next time she would be prepared and have fine stuff ready to kindle
with.

So she tried again and again and again, till her arm ached and her
breath came in gasps. And the children would squat in a circle, their
bright eyes glued to the tiny pile of powdered charred wood, and
Esther, with unvarying monotony, would ask, “Why doesn’t it light,
Marian? Did before”; and presently, “Why doesn’t it light, Marian? Did
before.”

It was fully a week after the first success before she achieved the
second one, and then also, in spite of her best and most earnest
endeavor, she could not kindle it any farther, and when the charred
powder was exhausted it went out.

Of course, she could not spend all her time upon it, but every day
there would be a trial of it sandwiched in between other labors.

She took particular notice of the wood she was using when success
crowned her efforts. The little round stick was from a piece of
driftwood. She did not know what it was, but it was a soft wood that
whittled easily, and the base piece was from a kind of tree cactus
called _echo_.[4]

  [4] Pronounced _ayʹ tcho_.

After a while she became so accomplished that she could produce fire
about every tenth time she tried, and in course of time she became much
more expert than that. She always used _echo_ for her base piece, and
for the other she found that a certain bush up in the pasture was best.
She could cut sticks from it and dry them, and they were straight and
round and smooth without any whittling.

Also she learned that a handful of grass so old and dry that it had all
turned gray, if it were broken and rubbed till it was very fine, made
good kindling. With a handful of that over her precious coal of fire,
she could, with careful coaxing, get a blaze, and then it was easy to
build on with other material.

Having once learned how, she felt easier. She laid up pieces of the
selected wood in several places on the Island, where they would keep
dry,--carried some away back into the bat cave for one place,--besides
having a good supply tucked away in the home Cave.

When they went away from the Island, they would take a couple of the
fire-sticks with them along with Delbert’s arrows. They used to tie
them high up on the mast to keep them out of the way of spray and
splashings, and Marian would slip the bottle-bottom into her pocket.
The glass was somewhat clumsy, however, and there was danger of
cutting her fingers on it, and afterwards they found some shells--big
barnacles, I think they were--which served the purpose just as well and
were neater and safer to handle.

Dried grass they could always find; so they could have a fire whenever
they wanted it without using the matches, which were dropped into the
workbag to await some possible emergency. On the Island, however, they
found it more convenient to bury the brands from one fire over to
another, as they had done before.

Their trips to the egg islands, however, did not wait on all of this.
As before mentioned, there were two of these islands. On the farther
and smaller of the two they found several things that proved of value.
It was the one the nearer to the mainland, and some time or other there
had been a house or camp of some description on it. They found the
blackened stones where the food had been cooked over the fire and some
broken fragments of pottery such as the natives use, and, not far away,
some scraps of iron so broken and rusty that they could not make up
their minds what they had been, but Marian saved them.

Growing near were shrubs and bushes like those in their own pasture,
but Delbert found one bush that had two shoots longer and straighter
than any he had yet seen, and when cut and trimmed they made better
spear-handles than the one he had been using. And at low tide they
found there the largest oysters they had yet discovered anywhere.

When back at their own camp, Marian and Delbert resolutely attacked
the job of making a better spear or harpoon than the one they had.
It seemed to the girl that if one only understood a little of
blacksmithing, one of the pieces of iron could be altered a little and
made into a very respectable spear-head, and perhaps, if one did not
understand, one could learn a little.

She could easily poke the iron into the fire till it grew red-hot. To
handle it afterwards was the question. She and Delbert were both afraid
of getting burned, and wasted much time because of that fear.

They rigged up a rude pair of tongs with some green sticks and a little
rope, and, using the hatchet for a hammer and a flat stone for an
anvil, they began work. It was intensely interesting.

The experiment in “duck”-raising proved unsuccessful, for the cormorant
squabs which they brought home alive would eat nothing but fish, and
as each one of them demanded more than his own weight in food every
day, the children soon found that the task of keeping them fed was a
hopeless one. They killed them all off at once, therefore, and had such
a feast of “duck” that they were content to do without that particular
kind of meat for some time to come.

They had plenty of eggs and clams, however, and an occasional quail
or rabbit; so they did not need to waste any time searching for food.
Davie and the little girls wandered off to play with the little bone
dolls or the baby burro. Marian glanced toward them or stopped to
listen sometimes, but the sight of their little forms near by or the
sound of their sweet, childish voices reassured her, and she continued
with the task in hand.

A man who understood such things would have done much better even with
those rude tools. Time and again it seemed to the girl that she could
do no better, go no further in the task; then some idea would come to
one or the other of them, and they would work awhile longer. A full
week went by before the new tool was finished, a two-pronged affair,
one prong a little longer than the other and of a different shape, but
both sharp and barbed. It fastened quite snugly to the straightest of
the new handles.

After that she and Delbert went spearing at night in the little harbor,
when the tide was just right and the children were asleep. They would
go out on the raft where there were mango bushes, but for this they
had to have a torchlight at one end of the raft.

They had often seen the Indians at the Port start out at night with
great piles of _pitalla_ in their canoes to burn in a huge wire and
iron basket, which would cast a bright circle of light for quite a
space around, in which the fish could be plainly seen. Marian thought
that the light attracted them.

This _pitalla_ is a kind of tree cactus the bark of which is very
resinous and when dry burns with a very hot, bright flame. They could
gather it in the pasture, but they had no wire basket and nothing to
make one of. The best, it seemed, that they could do was to make a mat
of green banana leaves and mud on the poles and build the fire on that.

It was very unsatisfactory, for the water was forever washing over it
and putting it out. Necessity is the mother of invention, however, and
after a while Marian hunted in the pasture till she found four little
crotches of the same size, which she cut and trimmed and then fastened
on the extreme end of the log by tying them above and below it and to
one another. Then, by laying little sticks across them, she made a
platform which rose about three feet above the surface of the water.
She made it quite tight by weaving in stout twigs and banana leaves
and stems, and when it was finished, she plastered it over with the
slimiest mud she could find, and on that laid thin flat rocks, fitting
them with care so that their edges projected past the edge of the
platform and filling in the little chinks with mud and pebbles. On that
when it was finished, she could build her fire with safety, for it was
up out of reach of the water. It was not so good as the iron basket
of the Indians, for it was clumsier, it cast a shadow on the water,
and there was likelihood of its needing frequent repairs; but it would
serve. The supply of fuel could be kept dry by putting it into the
barrel, which was tied on so that its open side and end were upward.

When they were first left on the Island, Marian would not have dared
take those night trips. She would not have dared leave the children
alone at the Cave for one thing, but in all the time that they had been
there they had seen nothing which could have harmed them save the one
rattlesnake which Delbert had killed.

From the Cave they had cleared three paths,--one to the beach, one to
the garden and the little pier, and one toward the pasture. This last
had needed no clearing beyond the cutting-out of two or three bushes.
The path to the pier had been mostly a matter of clearing away loose
stones, and it was easy to follow even in the dark.

However, it was only when Davie was sleepy that the children were left
at the Cave. When he gave promise of being able to keep awake, they all
went together. Marian would place him on the log between the little
girls and give them strict instructions that they were not to let go
of him. Then she and Delbert would take turns with the spear and the
steering of the craft.

And when she had her little flock all with her, Marian would venture
out beyond the little harbor, where the water was shallow and the mango
bushes were thicker, and as long as their fuel lasted they would stay
out.

It was a weird scene,--the star-dotted sky above, the black, whispering
water below, the clumsy raft in the light of the hot fire swept back
by the breeze, the slender, eager-eyed, half-naked boy watching keenly,
as mass after mass of the mango bushes came into the circle of their
light. Marian generally guided the raft, for she was better at that
than Delbert, who seemed about as successful as she with the spear.

Not that either of them had any startling success. Indeed, for a
long time it always seemed accidental, more the fish’s fault than
theirs, when one became impaled upon the iron prongs. But the sport
was exciting, and there was always the need that lay back of it to
keep their interest spurred up, and after a while they both learned to
strike quickly and with force, so that, with constant practice, the
time came when a night’s spearing meant enough fish for one meal at
least, and, if luck was with them, for more.

They had better luck with the spear at night than with the line in the
daytime, for the hairpin hook was very inadequate and big fish were
forever straightening it out. When a fish was speared, they put it
into the barrel with the fuel, where one of the girls held a piece of
drift-wood over it till the wildest of its flopping was past.

[Illustration: THEY HAD BETTER LUCK WITH THE SPEAR AT NIGHT THAN WITH
THE LINE IN THE DAYTIME]

Davie generally fell asleep, and then it took the whole attention
of Jennie to hold him safe. Indeed, Marian would not risk him with
just that, and used to take a rope along to tie him when he finally
dozed off. He objected strenuously to being tied as long as he was
awake enough to know it, but, once he was asleep, she could moor him
securely, and Jennie could devote herself to keeping him cuddled and
covered, with no fear that he would roll out of her hands when the raft
careened with some of the spearman’s wild lunges.

When they had as many fish as they wanted, or, more often, when their
fuel was exhausted, they would paddle back to the little pier, moor the
raft, wash the fishiness off their hands and climb back up to the Cave,
where they would cuddle down in bed and quickly go to sleep.

Then in the quiet, as she thought of her mother, Marian’s eyes would
fill with tears and her outstretched hand would pass lovingly over
each little form. “Safe as yet,” she would whisper, “and, O mother, I
promise to keep them safe till I can give them back to you again.”




CHAPTER VI

THE JAGUAR’S TRACK


One day, while poking her inquisitive little nose into Marian’s
workbag, Esther fished up five or six knobby, roundish little lumps,
demanding, “What are these, Marian?”

“Nasturtium seeds,” replied Marian carelessly.

“’Sturtium seeds?”

“Yes.”

“Why, Marian,” reproachfully; “why haven’t you been planting ’em? Don’t
you know ’sturtium seeds are good to eat?”

Marian gazed steadily for a moment at the seeds in the little girl’s
outstretched hand, then she slowly took them into her own.

“Pocahontas,” she said solemnly, “I never thought of that. Of course
they are good to eat,--the seeds, leaves, flowers, stems, and all.
We’ll plant them before the sun goes down to-night.”

“You’re a great squaw chief, you are,” said Esther scornfully.
“Jennie! Dellie! Looky, here’s ’sturtium seeds been in Marian’s bag all
this time, an’ she never thought of planting ’em.”

Jennie and Delbert came up excitedly. Jennie, too, was rather inclined
to scorn at such evidence of Marian’s lack of thought, but Delbert
threw his arms around her and planted vehement kisses on her cheeks.

“You shan’t scold her,” he declared. “She’s the best squaw chief ever
was. Nobody could do better, _nobody_ could, and I love her!”

“So do I! So do I!” shrieked the girls, rushing in to contribute
their share of affectionate demonstration, and Davie, dropping the
dig-spoon, ran up, crying, “Do I! Do I!” in parrot-like refrain; and
Marian, laughing, had much ado to keep from being knocked down with the
onslaught.

But the seeds were straightway planted, and in time became a profusion
of red and gold and green which delighted the eyes, and incidentally
the palates, of Marian’s nestful of hungry little hawks, as she called
them.

In time also came warm weather and rains, and in some respects this
bettered their condition and in some respects it made it worse.

With warm weather they needed less bedding and less clothing at all
times. Moreover, the rains made things grow. In the pasture there were
several things that they knew to be good for greens, and they gathered
a mess of some kind every day, boiling them with salt, and wondering
how it had been that they had once upon a time thought that greens must
have butter and vinegar to be really good.

But the rains brought gnats and mosquitoes to some extent, and
sometimes these were so bad among the mango bushes that they could
take no comfort in fishing. Sometimes, too, they troubled them so that
they could scarcely sleep of nights, though their Cave was so high up
on the hill that there was usually a light breeze that drove away the
insect invaders. When the pests were very bad, the tribe would draw the
tablecloth over their faces or would throw grass and green leaves on
the fire, making a “smudge” that would subdue their tormentors.

Marian thought the bananas had begun to respond a little to the
cultivation she had given them in the way of thinning out their
numbers. At any rate, they were bearing a slightly better class of
fruit. As soon as a bunch ripened a little, the birds would promptly
start in to take their share, and she would cut down the stalk and take
the bunch up to the cave, where she could keep it safely covered up
till it was ripe enough to be good eating.

With these and the greens and the watermelons she felt always sure of
a sufficient commissary supply. Still, they were as keen as ever to
detect new food. One day Delbert came in with several bulbs, or roots,
that he had dug up in the pasture. He said they looked good enough to
eat and he wanted to try them.

Marian was very doubtful, but finally put them to roast in the coals
while they went down for their morning swim, intending to offer one to
the baby burro when they got back. They had taught the burro to eat
everything that they did, and Delbert had suggested that they try the
new food on him first.

He was willing to be cautious, but he was not willing to let a
perfectly good food lie in the ground unused because they were not
courageous enough to find out about it. If the burro had no trouble
with it, Marian herself would sample a little, but very cautiously.
She would hold a little of it in her mouth awhile first and see if
anything came of it, and if it seemed all right they would all eat a
little.

They had a fine swim. There were nice little breakers on the open side
of the Island that morning. The children would run out a little way,
wait till the right moment, then turn dextrously and let the foamy wave
sweep them up on the beach. Marian kept hold of Davie, for the water
was far too rough to trust his safety to his own little legs, sturdy
though they were. But, with her to hold his hand, he had no fear, and
laughed as loudly as the rest when the water slapped him off his feet
and swept him up with the seaweed and the crabs. After a while he said
he was tired and wanted to go and dig; so his sister let go of him, and
he trotted off to where he had left the dig-spoon under a rock, and a
moment later was excavating most industriously, while Marian turned her
attention to the others.

They all joined hands and waded out a little farther than she had cared
to go with Davie. It was splendid fun, but pretty soon Jennie called
out, “Look, Marian! Davie is going up to the Cave!”

They all looked; sure enough the little fellow was almost up the hill.
Delbert became excited immediately.

“I’ll just bet he will go to monkeying with those potatoes!” he cried,
and started forthwith for the beach. The same thought had crossed
Marian’s mind at the same instant, and, ordering the little girls to
come too, she followed close at Delbert’s heels.

They made all speed for the Cave, but they got there too late. Davie
was just gulping down the last mouthful as they reached him.

He did his best to look sweetly innocent as he told them it was
“goo-ood!” Delbert’s face was a study. He was provoked enough to shake
his little brother thoroughly, yet he was frightened enough to cry.
Marian’s face turned pale. Perhaps the things were perfectly harmless,
perhaps even highly nutritious, but again perhaps they were deadly
poison. She dared not risk it, and tried everything she could think of
to force the small gourmand to disgorge his stolen--or shall we say
misappropriated?--tidbit.

It was no use. Davie would not drink a lot of warm salt water, and he
would not let Marian run her fingers down his throat either.

She tried coaxing first, to no avail, and then she used force, but
though they managed, by holding his nose, to get a few spoonfuls
of the emergency emetic down his throat, and though Marian got her
fingers well bitten, at the end of an hour or so the potatoes had not
reappeared, and Marian, regarding the thoroughly enraged and squawling
youngster, reflected that if any harm had been going to result from
his impromptu lunch it would probably have begun to take effect before
then, and so gave up the struggle.

Still she was not easy. She watched him closely all day. After he got
over his fit of temper he went about his play just as usual.

Several times in the night the elder sister awoke with a start, and,
leaning over him, held her breath till she heard the regular rising and
falling of his. All the next day she watched, but everything seemed to
be perfectly normal, and in the afternoon Delbert brought in another
batch of the potatoes, which they did try on the burro. Davie watched
with great interest. He said again that they were “goo-ood,” but he
did not offer to eat any himself. Marian thought that if her fight the
day before had not accomplished the end she worked for, it had probably
taught Davie to attend more strictly to his own business, which might
be of great advantage some time in the future.

The burro also said the bulbs, or potatoes as Delbert called them, were
good, and ate all Delbert would give him; so afterwards they tried them
themselves. They found them somewhat like rather poor sweet potatoes,
but they were a welcome change for their bill of fare, nevertheless.
But they could not find them very often.

The baby burro was a great comfort to the children. Sometimes, when
they were quite sure his mother was not near, they would let him out
of the corral, and he would follow them about like a dog. They even
made him drag home little bundles of wood for them sometimes. The other
burros were quite tame, but not enough so to be handled at will.

Often the children had glimpses of the deer and sometimes of the pigs.
Marian had been afraid at first that these latter might be the wild
peccaries and more or less dangerous, but, after seeing them quite
close one time, she concluded that they were not, for they certainly
looked like the domesticated pig except that they were not at all fat.

Always they kept watch of the sea, never forgetting that each day might
bring rescue, but, though many and many a sail passed by in the distant
Gulf, never a one turned into San Moros. Sometimes, indeed, Indian
canoes had been seen inside the narrow sandbars that divided San Moros
from the Gulf, hunting turtles maybe, but they did not come within
signaling distance of Smugglers’.

Marian’s white skirt was flapping itself to tatters. Sometimes a heavy
wind and rain tore it down altogether, and they would find it beaten
into the sand, but it was always rescued, washed, dried, and sent aloft
again.

The rainy days were the dreariest. Then there was nothing to do but
curl up at the Cave. The brush shade they had built in front did not
avail to keep out the rain. Before the rainy season was over they got
so sick and tired of huddling in the Cave every time it rained that
they would reduce their clothing to a minimum and go on with their
occupations as if nothing were happening. If you really don’t mind
getting wet, there is a fascination in becoming a part of the gray,
drizzling landscape. But they preferred the sunshine.

One day, as Jennie tossed down an armload of wood beside the fire down
by the beach, something about her suddenly arrested Marian’s attention.
She looked startled.

“Jennie,” she said, “come here.”

Jennie came wondering, while Marian, dish-towel in hand, stood
motionless, gazing at her.

“What is it?” asked the sweet-faced little girl.

Her sister did not speak for a moment longer, then, “Lift up your
skirt,” she said. Jennie obeyed, revealing her little bare legs.

Esther, drawing near, lifted her skirt also. Marian put down her dish
and towel and knelt in front of the two for a closer inspection.

“Jennie,” she said finally, “Jennie, you are actually getting fat.”

“Is she?” questioned Esther. “She isn’t as fat as I.”

Marian took off Jennie’s jacket and inspected her arms. Delbert drew
near, and Davie came up to pass his expert opinion on the subject. “You
are getting fat,” repeated Marian.

And it was so. The little face was rosy, the cheeks were not hollow
now, and the chin was not so pointed as it used to be. The little legs,
though not so plump as those of Esther’s showing, were really and truly
rounded out.

“Well,” said Delbert, “she hasn’t been sick, you know, not since we
have been here, and we have been here ’most a year.”

“No,” said Marian, “she has not been sick. She has not even complained
of feeling badly, as far as I can remember. Do you ever feel bad any
more, Jennie?”

Jennie soberly examined her sensations for a moment.

“I feel hungry,” she said.

Marian laughed,--a long ringing peal; but there were tears in her eyes
too as she went back to her task. It was stewed “duck” that morning,
one that Delbert had shot with his bow and arrow and then swam out and
got. It was stewed duck and watermelon,--all they could eat of the
latter,--and after breakfast they armed themselves with the longest
poles they could get and went up into the pasture after the fruit of
the _pitalla_ cactus.

This was the cactus whose dried bark they burned on their spearing
expeditions. The fruit grows high up and must be poked off with a long
stick and then have its many spines carefully removed before it can be
eaten. Fortunately, when it is ripe the spines come off easily and the
center is cool, sweet, and nutritious. They were very plentiful, and
sometimes they stewed them down in the little granite kettle, stirring
them constantly. This made a thick, syrupy jam that the children were
very fond of indeed.

Marian filled her two-quart glass jar and set it away till times when
there should be none of the fresh fruit to be had.

Conning their prospects over and over, Marian often pondered on the
chance held out by the mainland. With the aid of the log they could
easily reach it. It was not nearly so far across the harbor as it was
down to the egg islands. They could manage the raft so well now, and
they could all swim so well, that she was not afraid of going anywhere
when the water was smooth.

And the mainland was just across the quiet little harbor. Suppose they
crossed over, what was the chance of making their way to some ranch or
settlement? Delbert could not remember just what it was that Clarence
had said about it, but it was something about there not being a house
for fifty miles, or was it a hundred?--he was not sure.

A wild tangle of thorny woods, no road or path, no compass to guide
them! Perhaps a lagoon of water, perhaps not; perhaps plenty of
_pitallas_, perhaps not! Marian always shook her head at the end. Here
on the Island she was sure of food, here was safety and shelter, but
out there--How long would it be before Davie would tire out and she
would have to carry him? And then their path to be cut through how
many miles of thorny brush? And no certainty then that they were not
traveling in the wrong direction.

No! And still it drew her, that mainland.

Perhaps if they could climb to the top of those hills they could look
out over the land beyond, and perhaps some sign of a ranch might be
seen in the far distance.

Many a time she had felt humbly grateful to Clarence for the things
he had taught them, odds and ends of stray knowledge that had come in
their need to be like precious jewels,--how to get oysters and clams,
how to sail a boat, how to paddle, and many other things. Now she felt
a little provoked that he had not taught them more.

Why in the wide world couldn’t he have told Delbert where the nearest
habitation was, and what it was?--for it was quite likely that he knew.
How had he got his information? she wondered.

When she suggested to Delbert that they cross over the harbor and climb
that highest mountain and see what they could see, he was very willing;
he had thought of it himself.

So they started out one morning, taking water with them, but depending
on the _pitallas_ they would find for food. They crossed over easily
enough and did not have much trouble in reaching the foot of the
mountain. But the ascent was not an easy matter. There was cactus of
every description, all interwoven with thorny brush,--such a thick,
matted underbrush that the children were scratched and pricked all
over.

Davie was crying lustily before long, and Jennie fell and, in her
efforts to catch herself, rolled a stone on Esther’s foot that showed
black and blue for many a day afterwards. Sometimes there would be
a space comparatively clear where they could pick their way without
encountering thorns at every step, and it was in one of these that
Marian saw that which turned her back and kept her feet from the
mainland for a year to come.

They had just come up a particularly steep part of the mountain, where
an outcropping ledge added to the difficulties for little climbing
feet. Above it was space to breathe before one had to cope with the
next ledge above, which rose in an abrupt cliff. There was a _pitalla_
tree there with a dozen fruit on it, all opened out red and inviting,
and Delbert started with the long pole to bring them down.

Marian paused to get a thorn out of Esther’s thumb and two from her
next-to-the-littlest toe, and when that was finished the little girl
ran on to help the others gather the fruit, and the older one, rising,
put the needle carefully into a little case she had and slipped it into
her pocket. Her supply of needles was limited and she must not lose a
single one.

[Illustration: THERE WAS A CAT-TRACK]

Then, as she turned to join the others, her eye fell to the ground at
her feet, and there, plain and distinct, was a cat-track so large that
she could not have covered it with one of her hands, and her hands
were not so very small either. Fascinated, she stared at it. There
was no doubt as to what it was. She glanced around, but could see no
others. The ground chanced to be a little soft in that particular
spot. But surely that one was enough; there was no need of more. What
a monster it must have been to have made that track! Marian drew in
a quick breath and then threw up her head and called casually, “O
children, come back now. We won’t go any farther.”

Delbert, his eyes wide with surprise, came quickly with some protesting
words, but Marian frowned warningly at him and with a tilt of her chin
indicated the track. His gaze found it instantly. Indeed, it seemed to
Marian to be the most conspicuous feature of the landscape.

He bent his head toward it a moment; then his eyes met hers again. For
a second they looked at each other; there was no need of words. He
turned back to the _pitalla_ to hurry the others back, and Marian saw
him casting surreptitious glances at the cliff above them.

The little girls and Davie were so glad to turn back that they asked
no questions, taking it for granted that the plan was changed because
there were too many thorns.

The two older ones were rather silent on the way back. They went as
quickly as they could, but it was not a thing that could be done so
very quickly, and Marian grew more and more nervous. Supposing the
creature saw them, supposing--she jerked herself up and mentally gave
herself a good scolding, but never was she so glad as when they left
the mountain behind and pushed through to where the raft was tied,
waiting for them.

As they pushed out and paddled back, calmness came to her. There were
hard things in her pathway, dreary things to face, but, compared with
what might be, her life seemed full of rosebuds and sunshine.

Four pair of bright, loving eyes looked at her; four healthy, warm,
breathing little bodies would lie within reach of her touch that night.
Suppose one were ever missing through her fault or carelessness, what
pleasure would life hold then?

Looking back at the face of the mountain, she judged that they had
climbed about a third of the way up.

It was well into the afternoon when they got home, and a hungry lot
they were, too.

That night Delbert waited till he was sure the little ones were asleep
and then he cautiously spoke Marian’s name.

She was awake. “What is it?”

He turned over and raised himself on his elbow.

“Do you--do you suppose--it could swim over?”

“I don’t think so,” said she; “it is probably strong enough, but it
seems to me I have read that they never go into the water unless they
are compelled to. No, I am quite sure it would never do that.”

Delbert drew a long breath of relief.

“I know the house kitty never wanted to get her toes wet,” he said.

“No, we are quite safe from it here.”

“I guess we’d better stay here,” he said.

They did stay there. When the weather turned cold again, they were
in better condition than they had been the year before. They had two
rabbit-skin blankets, or robes, that kept out the chill winds at
night, and they had the brush shelter in front of the Cave so thick and
matted and interwoven with banana leaves and strips of stalk that the
wind did not penetrate that either; so with the bright fire they could
be comfortable through the evenings and cold nights. In the daytime
they were always so active that the cold did not much trouble them.
Besides, it soon warmed up after the sun rose.

One day, while up in the pasture, hunting food and fuel, they noticed
an unusually large mescal or century-plant. These were very common on
the island, and Marian had never thought of any use they could put
them to, but that day it suddenly dawned upon her that very similar
plants were cultivated in some places for the rope fiber in the great
sharp-pointed leaves. Perhaps it would be stronger and better than
banana fiber. So they dug this one up by the roots and dragged it home.

They chopped off the thick leaves and tossed the stump to one side.
Then, with some stones, the hatchet, and the knives, they thumped and
pounded and smashed the leaves and worked and scraped away till they
got the fiber out, and when they finally did get it, it seemed to
Marian that it really was better than banana fiber. That evening they
would see what kind of a rope could be made out of the new material. So
after supper they got at it, sitting before their fire at the Cave.

They did not braid their ropes any more; they had learned better than
that; but they both felt that their method of rope-making could be
vastly improved upon, for it was a very slow process at best, and the
rope finally produced was a very uneven thing.

But ropes they had to have. The raft must always be well lashed
together, and ropes so used soon wore out. Their fences were tied with
ropes in many places. They never went on any excursion without taking
some ropes along, for they were constantly wanting them, chiefly,
perhaps, to tie about their bundles of wood. A very large bundle of
heavy sticks could be quite easily dragged home with a rope.

In the first place they had had only Delbert’s hair rope and had used
it for everything, but now they were trying to be as saving of it as
possible, never using it when another one would suffice, but Delbert
always carried it with him, coiled up and tied at his waist.

When they finished working out the fiber it was clean, straight, and
pretty as it lay in a neat pile.

“Now, how is the best way to do this?” asked Marian in a businesslike
tone.

“I have been thinking,” said Delbert. “Remember that time I went with
Clarence and his father after a load of corn? Well, at one place where
we stopped there was an old Indian making ropes. I’ve been trying for a
long time to remember how he did it. Dear me!” he exclaimed in disgust,
“why didn’t I pay ’tention? Clarence explained it all to me, but I just
let it go into one ear and out the other. I wasn’t interested in making
ropes then.”

“Can’t you remember anything about it at all?” asked his sister
sympathetically. “If you could just remember a point or two, we could
work it out from that, maybe. Davie, don’t you want to put a stick of
wood on the fire? Not that one, dear; that one won’t burn,” for Davie
had picked up the stump of the mescal plant and heaved it into the
center of the flames.

“Yes, will burn,” asserted he complacently, and returned to his play of
fitting little clamshells together and laying them in a row.

Jennie poked the stump to one side and raked the coals and hot ashes
over it. “We’ll dry it out, and then maybe it’ll burn, Davie dear,” she
said.

“Here,” said Esther, gingerly handing over a piece of particularly
thorny _pitalla_; “this will make a light.”

“Why, you see,” said Delbert, “they had the fiber--_este_ they call
it--all in a pile, but tangled as if they must have tangled it
themselves. They had that part of it all done when we got there, but I
remember Clarence said they laid it on something--a board, I guess--and
hooked one end over a nail to hold it, and scraped it with an old
machete blade fixed in a crooked stick,--scraped it and scraped it till
there wasn’t anything left of the leaf but the fiber; then, I s’pose,
they tangled it all up next; anyway, the man had a thing he whirled
and he backed off across the yard, a-whirling it and whirling it and
spinning a strand of rope out from that pile of _este_.”

“Was it a wheel he whirled?”

“No, it wasn’t. It was just a little stick thing he held in one
hand,--two sticks, one of them whirled on the other.”

“Give me your knife,” said Marian, “and, Jennie, hand me that piece of
driftwood there by you; no, the other one. Was the stick he had as long
as that, Delbert?”

“Just about, but it was nice and smooth.”

“This will be nice and smooth when I get through with it. You just
tangle some of that fiber the way the old Indian had his.”

Delbert began picking it apart and dropping it careless and crisscross.

“You can just bet,” he burst out, “you can just bet your _boots_, if I
ever have a chance to see anybody else doing anything again, I’ll _see_
what they are doing; don’t care what it is.”

“That is the best way,” admitted Marian. “There are a whole lot of
things, simple things, that would help us a great deal if we only knew
how to do them. Can’t you remember anything more Clarence said about
this?”

Delbert wrinkled his brows. “There was something about a
balance-wheel. What is a balance-wheel?”

“I don’t know that I can explain it, though I know what it is myself.
Maybe I can show you pretty soon. Hand me that little smooth stick
about a foot and a half long, that one with the knob on the end. Yes, I
think that will do nicely.”

She had shaved and whittled the piece of driftwood till it was about a
foot long, an inch thick, and two and one half inches wide at one end
and tapering to a point at the other, which point she whittled into a
button-like knob. Just back of the knob she made a hole big enough to
slip the second stick into. It slipped down, but was prevented from
slipping clear off by the knob on the end of it. Then, grasping this
second stick, she began to whirl it so that the driftwood stick whirled
round and round on it.

“There!” she cried; “does that look anything like it, Delbert?”

“It does! it does! That’s it exactly! How did you guess?”

“I didn’t guess. I have seen one myself somewhere, but didn’t know what
it was for. I think I saw a couple of them down at Doña Luisa’s one
morning when I went down for milk. But the proof of the pudding is in
the eating. Let’s see how this complicated machine will work.”

She twisted a little of the tangled fiber round the knob on the
driftwood stick and began to twirl. Of course it promptly twisted the
fiber into a little strand.

“Here, Delbert,” she said, “you whirl this while I spin out the strand,
or else it will all twist up in bunches.” Sitting down by the little
pile of fibers, she grasped the twisting strand in one hand so that it
should spin out of an even size. “Now, whirl away,” she said, “and back
off as fast as it spins out.”

“This is just the way they did it,” said Delbert. “I remember now,
there were two of them; one whirled the stick, and the other sat down
and pulled the strand out of the pile of fiber just as you are doing
it.” And he backed off, whirling vigorously, until the little pile of
tangled fibers was all used up.

“There,” she said, “that is a lot better than twisting it just with our
fingers, as we have been doing with the banana fiber, and it certainly
beats braiding all hollow. We can twist and twist and twist, and then
we can put as many strands as we want to into the rope.”

They worked that night till they had used up all their fiber, and then
went to bed, agreeing to go next day and gather more mescal plants.

In the morning, when Marian raked open her fire, she raked out the
stump of the mescal plant. It was brown and juicy. She began to examine
it.

“Looks good. Doesn’t it?” she said to the children, who were rolling
out of the Cave.

Esther came suddenly forward and bent over it. “It is good, too,” she
declared. “That is the stuff they had down at Julianita’s one day. They
were eating it, and said for Jennie and me to eat some too, but Jennie
wouldn’t touch it ’cause she was ’fraid it would make us drunk.”

“You didn’t eat any either,” remonstrated Jennie.

“I didn’t ’cause you didn’t.”

Marian was cutting the stump in pieces. They all tried it. It was
sweet and good, though there was a great deal of string and fiber to
be discarded after the sweetness and goodness had been chewed out and
swallowed.

“But it _is_ what they make mescal of; isn’t it?” asked Delbert.

“I presume it is; in fact, it must be, only this wild plant doesn’t
grow just the same as the tame ones, maybe; but it must be that they
cook the centers something like this and mash them and let them ferment
and distill it some way. It seems to me I have heard how it was done,
but I was like you about the ropes; I didn’t pay enough attention to
remember. It certainly never occurred to me that there was anything
about it that was any good to _us_. I think we owe Davie a vote of
thanks.”

“Clarence ought to have told us,” said Esther reproachfully.

So another food was added to their list, and after a little practice
they could turn out mescal fiber ropes that were so smooth and well
twisted that they could be used to lasso with.

The two little girls had learned to lasso burros, but Marian’s aim
was not much better than Davie’s. She did not practice the art as her
little sisters did. She whittled out a big crochet-hook, though, and
then twisted a very fine strand of fiber and crocheted a bag of it that
was very useful to put things into on their travels. Whenever there was
a storm, they would always go to Bonanza Cove afterwards to collect the
riches found there.

These consisted mostly of driftwood, and the small pieces could go
into the bag, while the big ones were tied together and carried or
dragged home. But sometimes other things came, bottles empty but
corked,--so many of them that Marian concluded all sailors must be sad
drinkers,--bits of board, an old leaky bucket, and, best of all, this
second year, a broken oar.

“I hope it didn’t incommode any one much when it broke,” Marian said,
“but we certainly can make good use of it.” It was just barely long
enough to use as a paddle.

When it came nesting-time again, they were right on hand at the bird
islands. They would put the eggs into the bag and the demijohn and a
few young squabs into the barrel, and they were so much better equipped
for the cruise than they were the first time they made the trip that
it did not seem such a big undertaking, and they could go oftener.

Once, while out on one of the sandbars, hunting clams, they saw
something farther out still, something dark on the water. Delbert
thought it was probably only a mass of seaweed, but he wanted to go
and see. So, as the water was very smooth that morning, they paddled
the raft out, though they had never been so near the Gulf before since
their arrival.

They found the dark spot to be another log, much smaller and somewhat
shorter than the one in their raft, but they took it in tow just the
same.

They found some turtle-eggs on those sunny sandbars that second summer.
Sometimes they saw the turtles themselves, but they were never able to
catch one, though Delbert was very enthusiastic in the pursuit.

That summer they had vegetables; and how good they were! The turnips
and carrots grew splendidly, and the children devoured them both
cooked and raw. The green peppers, for some reason, did not flourish
so well till the next year, but they were eaten with a relish also.
The lettuce, when transplanted and cared for, set in solid heads that
reminded them of cabbage, and the children ate it like so many hungry
little calves eating clover, and Marian often boiled a head of it with
a fowl, and they voted it fine.

The bananas bore good fruit now, large, well-filled-out bunches. Marian
dried some. Among the edible fruits of the Island was the wild tomato.
They found very few of these, and the fruit was very small, scarcely
larger than the tip of Marian’s little finger, but when the seeds were
planted in their garden they came up and did well, plenty of water
increasing the size and quality of the fruit somewhat. The plants bore
abundantly, and the flavor was good. They put them in soups or stewed
them by themselves sometimes, sweetening them with the juice boiled
from the _pitallas_, or, at rare intervals, with wild honey. But the
greater portion of them were eaten raw.

There was certainly no lack of food now. Delbert did not set traps any
more. He could shoot so well with his bow and arrow that he did not
need traps to secure a rabbit when one was wanted, and the little
girls could sometimes hit a hopping mark as well as he.

They lost the hook one day, some big fish making off with it, and they
caught their fish entirely with the spear after that.

They were milking two burros. Jacky, being thoroughly weaned, was
turned out of the corral and went where he pleased, and he generally
pleased to go with the children whenever they were going where he could
follow. Jennie was really plump now, strong and healthy, but not so
strong or so healthy as Esther, who, solid little urchin, could follow
Delbert very closely in all his exploits. She could run as far without
getting tired, she could shoot an arrow with almost as accurate an aim,
and she did not always miss the fish she aimed her spear at.

She was a splendid little swimmer, better even than Marian, and it used
to seem to Marian that she was the prettiest little mermaid any one
ever set eyes on.




CHAPTER VII

THE MUGGYWAH


The time came when Marian had to face the problem of clothing. Every
bathing-suit was worn to rags, and everything else was so near it that
there was no trusting anything. When the weather was cold they had
their wraps, and these covered a multitude of tattered sins, and none
of the tribe save Marian herself ever wore anything into the water any
more, but even with such economy there was no dodging the issue any
longer. Unless she were willing that her flock should revert to extreme
savagery in costumes, something had to be done.

Her first attempt was to crochet clothing out of fiber, but it took
so long to make a garment that way that she was always eagerly on the
alert for other modes. She remembered that soaking skins in wet ashes
would remove the hair. Old Mr. Faston had said so once. So she tried
it with some rabbit-skins. It worked very well. After being packed in
a little hollow of the rock with ashes and water all night, the fur
was easily pulled off. Then, when the ashes were washed off and the
skin was nearly dry, it could be rubbed and worked till it was soft and
pliable and Marian could begin dressmaking.

Rabbits were getting scarce in their immediate vicinity, however, and
the search for better hunting-grounds took them back to the mainland
again. They did not cross the harbor and go to climbing mountains this
time, however. They took the raft down the bay and followed one of the
winding _esteros_ that led between mango bushes, off and off, farther
and farther, twisting and turning and growing narrower and more and
more shallow till they came out into a comparatively level country,
with no hills near at hand, but great stretches of mud flats and
sandbanks and miles and miles of _pitalla_ and scrubby brush.

They took the raft as far as they could and tied it to some bushes and
proceeded afoot. They wandered several miles, taking care not to lose
their bearings. They found wagon-loads of fine _pitalla_ and some other
wood, rabbits galore, and a few stone or flint arrowheads, but no sign
whatever of human habitation.

Delbert shot eight big jack rabbits, Esther got three, and Jennie two,
thirteen in all. They decided that the unluckiness of the number was
for the rabbits, not for them. They took only the skins home with them,
for they did not need the meat, and they had plenty of other things to
carry back to the raft.

They loaded it with all the good dry _pitalla_ they could pile up and
tie on. Down close by the water, half buried in the salty mud, Delbert
found a stone hatchet. Once before he had found a broken one, but this
was perfect. He held it in his hand with a dreamy look on his face.
“How long ago do you s’pose it was, Marian, when they made ’em and used
’em like this one?”

“Mercy! I have no idea; hundreds of years at the least and like as not
a million.”

“Well, anyway, it’s mine now,” he said decidedly, as he dropped it into
the fiber bag.

“Yes, I think you can keep it with a clear conscience. Now, get on
here, all of you. Never mind that crab, Davie; you don’t need it,
anyway.”

They did not get home till the moon was well up.

There was probably stuff growing at her hand that would have given
those skins a good tan, if Marian had only known what it was and how
to use it, but she did not. The soaking in ashes did fairly well; only
if the skin got well wet afterwards, it would dry stiff unless it was
worked and kept pliable while drying. Of course there was no strength
in the rabbit-skins. They tore easily, but they were, nevertheless, a
material of which Marian could make simple clothes, so that they should
not be entirely naked if any one ever did come along. She made dresses
for the little girls first, the simplest style she could think of,
eliminating sleeves altogether and not continuing the skirts below the
knees.

She crocheted belts of fiber, and used it also to sew with, for her
supply of thread was very low indeed. There was no need of buttons; the
little girls just slipped the dresses over their heads, slipped their
arms through the generous armholes, belted the slight fullness at the
waist, and there you were--pretty as pictures, too.

The only foreign articles in the construction of those robes were the
belt-buckles, which Marian had contrived out of the fasteners of their
old stocking-supporters. Of course the elastic and the stockings had
worn out long ago. Every one was barefoot now except Marian, who was
near enough to it, but the soles of her shoes had been very thick and
good, and though the tops were worn out she still managed to use the
bottoms as sandals and thus had some protection to her feet, which
somehow she could never get toughened as the children’s were.

After several more trips up the _estero_ and more or less success in
hunting, they had enough rabbit-skins to make Marian a dress too. She
made it just as she had the other two, belting it with her red leather
belt, which she had worn for several years, but which was still as
strong as new. Her dress came a little below her knees.

The rabbit-skins were not at all satisfactory for Delbert. He was in
and out of the water so constantly, and climbed and scrambled over the
rocks so much, that a garment that must not be wet and that would not
stand strain was not at all what he needed.

He told Marian that all he wanted was a loin-cloth such as other
Indians wore, but Marian was not at all sure how loin-cloths were made
or worn. She thought about cutting off an end of one of the blankets,
but rather hated to do that; so she worked away with her hook and
the banana fiber till she had evolved what satisfied him. And when
he donned it and strode along, shirtless and barelegged, his hair
stringing over his shoulders and kept out of his eyes by a red rag tied
around his forehead, and the rag stuck full of feathers, he certainly
looked not unlike an aborigine of some sort.

Davie declined even a loin-cloth; simple nature unadorned suited him to
a T.

Thus, between the bananas and the rabbits, Marian managed to keep her
family clothed.

They took many trips to the mainland. There were several _esteros_ that
led far inland, and they explored them all. They became accustomed to
going without water. They always had _some_ with them, but it was such
a bother to take a lot of bottles along every time they stirred out
from home that they trained themselves not to want a drink every little
while. They would take a big drink before they left the Island in the
morning, and often no one would take another till noon. Also they
learned to go without much food in the middle of the day and to eat
that little raw.

Children are children the world over, I fancy. These had their little
games and plays, which Marian was always ready to foster. The little
girls and Davie used to put their dolls to bed every night, tucking
them in as carefully as they did themselves. Also the dolls were
usually carried with them, if they were making a trip of any great
length, lest they should get lonesome and frightened if left too long
alone. They traveled in a little fiber bag Jennie crocheted, and were
generally hung up on the mast where they were well out of the way of
the water, and if they went inland Jennie would wear the bag hung about
her neck.

When they went in swimming, the children would play they were
fishes and other water creatures and would imitate the different
characteristics as well as they could. Davie’s favorite
characterization was that of the crab. He would run sideways on
all fours and pinch the other children’s toes. He played this so
strenuously that he often made himself something of a nuisance and had
to be tactfully guided into other channels of thought.

They were all perfectly delighted when Marian taught them how to stay
under water as long as they pleased. On one of their inland trips they
had found some large hollow weed-stalks. They played with them at first
by simply blowing bubbles in the water and drawing up mouthfuls of
water which they blew out at each other, but when Marian showed them
that by holding one of the hollow tubes in the mouth one could stay
under water as long as he remembered to breathe always through the
mouth and to keep the top of the tube above the water, they invented
all kinds of games that the new trick could be used in.

Delbert could do it best. He declared he could lie under the water and
go to sleep, it was so easy. Marian did not advise him to try it. “You
might get to snoring and drown before you could wake up,” she told him.

Their novel clothing gave new impetus to their Indian play. There was
some discussion at first as to which tribe they belonged to. They
could not seem to recognize themselves as belonging to any they had yet
heard of and they finally invented a new one and called themselves the
tribe of the Hawks. Marian had been calling Delbert that for some time,
he was always so keenly on the alert for anything to eat. And when he
perched himself on a rock and fished patiently,--that was before they
lost the hook,--he reminded her of nothing so much as a fish hawk ready
to swoop.

They spent more and more time on the trips inland. They began to skirt
the hills a little. Davie was so big now that he did not seem to tire
out any quicker than Jennie, and the little feet were all so tough that
hard roads did not daunt them.

They saw no more cat-tracks, but Marian never forgot that one, and
because of it kept the tribe away from the high rocky hills and the
thick growth.

The country beyond the largest _estero_ became familiar to them for
several miles. There was a certain lagoon there that they liked to go
to in the rainy season,--and there was no lagoon there except in the
rainy season. There were beautiful blue pond-lilies in it. Marian dug
up some roots and planted them on the home Island.

They frequently found arrowheads and sometimes other stones, broken,
but showing the work of human hands upon them, all of which spoke
with certainty of bygone people, but never anything of modern times.
Near the lagoon were several low hills, and on these they found the
cotton-tree. This tree in its season produces big pods full of silky
white cotton, and though the yield is not so very abundant, nor the
quality so very fine, yet they saved every pod they could find, Delbert
and Esther often climbing up for those that could not be reached from
the ground with a pole.

“Some day I will invent a spinning-wheel and a loom,” said Marian, “and
we will make cloth.” And the children, remembering the rope-making
machine she had made, never doubted her ability.

Once, when they were about two miles from the end of the _estero_, they
found a good-sized tree that had blown down some years before on the
side of a little hill. It was larger than any tree growing there now
and seemed to have been alone among its dwarfish neighbors. It was too
heavy to be dragged all that distance, but if they could manage to chop
off the few limbs and the roots that stuck up so high, they could roll
it down to the _estero_ and float it home.

It was a big task, but because they had plenty of time on their hands
and no pressing social duties, and also because they needed that log
in their business, they made trip after trip, starting at daylight and
not getting home till nearly dark, chopped and chopped with the hatchet
until they had the log smooth enough to roll, and then rolled it over
and over all that distance and floated it home in triumph.

Then they set about improving the raft. The new log was a little
crooked, but otherwise was about the equal of the one they had captured
out in the bay. The three logs together would be much better than the
raft as it was. Delbert’s idea was to lash them together as they had
been doing, but Marian had thought of an improvement, though it almost
seemed as if it could not be done with their limited facilities. They
had already accomplished so many tasks that seemed hard, however, and
Delbert was such a bright and willing helper, and the little girls were
always so willing to contribute their share to any labor, that she told
Delbert that at any rate they would have a try at shipbuilding.

[Illustration: CHOPPED AND CHOPPED UNTIL THEY HAD THE LOG SMOOTH ENOUGH
TO ROLL]

Long and longingly she looked at the old canoe, but in the end left it
where it was in the corral fence. She could think of no way to combine
it with the logs to make a more serviceable craft.

The new log was rolled up on the beach beside the one they had found
out on the water, and then the raft was taken to pieces, and the log
in the middle of it was also rolled up on the beach. After they were
all fixed in just the right position, they were kept in place by stakes
driven into the ground.

The next thing was to make a new tool. Among the scraps of iron found
on the little egg island was one about an inch in diameter and nearly
three feet long when straightened out. It was round, an immense bolt
maybe, but rusted and bent and twisted. What Marian did first was to
heat it to straighten it out.

It was very hard to handle it when it was hot. She had an assortment of
green sticks and matted-fiber holders for this purpose. As when they
were making the fish-spear, they used a flat rock for an anvil and the
hatchet for a hammer, and after many heatings and hammerings they got
the iron straight with a blunt point on one end.

But straightening the bar was only the beginning of the work. She kept
the fire hot and heated the bar time after time, and burned three holes
entirely through the two outside logs and corresponding ones well into
the middle log. Then they took six of the toughest stakes they could
find, whittled them straight and smooth to the right size, and drove
them in through the burned holes like huge nails. Next they burned and
whittled a big hole down into the center log as a socket for the mast.
Then they picked out the best of the poles that had been in the raft
and set it in place and drove in wedges to hold it solid. This got rid
of the clumsy lashings and proppings, besides giving them a straight
instead of a crooked mast, and it was not difficult then to rig up a
sail that could be easily raised and lowered, using, of course, one of
the blankets for a sail as before.

The platform that they burned their _pitalla_ on when spearing next
demanded their attention. It was too clumsy and was always needing
repairs. Once out on the salt reef they had found a dead sea turtle
half buried in the sand. They had fished it out and fastened it with
stakes where it would not be washed away, though every tide would
cover it, and the elements combined with the scavengers of the sea to
clean the shell for them. With rocks and the hatchet they broke away
the under part of the shell, and the top part, about two and a half
feet in diameter, curved and dished, would hold the _pitalla_ nicely.

Two stout, widespread crotches were cut and driven tightly into burned
holes at one end of the projecting middle log, so that they supported
the inverted turtle-shell. It did not, however, rest firmly enough
till Marian had wired it to the crotches by means of the bail from the
old wooden bucket, which was passed through little holes burned in the
shell.

Away off up in the pasture they had found a place where the soil
partook of the nature of clay. They brought some from there, mixed it
to the right consistency and spread a coating all over the inside of
the turtle-shell. It dried without much cracking, and the fire would
harden it. This was a vast improvement over the old platform, which, in
spite of their best efforts had always been a trifle wobbly and evinced
a tendency to spill the fuel off into the water at the slightest
provocation.

Delbert thought they had their task about finished now, but Marian had
a great deal more to do to it still. She wanted to build on the other
end a platform of some sort, where they could put things and have them
stay dry. By burning holes and driving in stakes and then weaving in
with small, tough green sticks, she succeeded in making that end of the
raft look not unlike a huge basket. Then by filling that same basket
with dried seaweed and such material, which was bulky but light, she
had a place where things could be carried out of reach of the waves and
where a little girl could lie down if she was tired. Of course, the
waves slopped up and soaked through the seaweed to some extent when the
raft was in use, but when it was moored quietly to the beach the hot
sun dried it out pretty well.

When the raft was finished, their third rainy season on the island was
past. Marian was learning, and the others along with her, something of
the eternal patience of the universe. So long as she was accomplishing
her purpose, she did not count much on the time it took to do it.

They all thought the new raft was such a beauty that it deserved a
name. Marian suggested everything she could think of from “Fleet Wings”
to “Annabel Lee,” but they finally decided on Jennie’s choice, which
was “Muggywah.” She said it was Indian and meant something very safe
and strong that nobody could conquer. Where she got the name or the
notion Marian could not imagine, and she herself could not tell, but
the Muggywah became one of the family forthwith.

Out where the center log projected, at the turtle-shell end, Marian
burned the name. “Oh, we are getting wonderfully aristocratic,” she
told the children. “It is not every family that can have their own
private yacht.”

They went on a big spearing expedition when the Muggywah was finished.
The tide was just right, and the fish were plentiful. They got three
enormous red snappers and a lot of smaller fry, and it was the most
satisfactory trip they had ever made.

Marian sat Turk-fashion on the seaweed deck and steered with the broken
oar, which had been spliced to make it better to handle, and Davie
was in front of her, dry and warm. When he went to sleep, it was the
easiest thing in the world to tie him safely, for some of the stakes of
the basketwork had been left high for that especial purpose, and then
he did not have to be watched.

Jennie took the spear first, and when, after a while, she grew tired
and gave the spear to Esther, who had been teasing for it, she too
crept back and crawled in with Davie under the shawls and lay on her
back, watching the bright stars above and the mango bushes, weird and
grotesque with the flare of the _pitalla_ fire and the backward swirl
of the smoke. When the game became an old story to Esther, she yielded
the spear to Delbert, and, after replenishing the fire from the fuel in
the barrel, she too curled down on the deck at Jennie’s feet.

Delbert and Marian then took turns at steering and spearing, and only
turned the Muggywah back toward the pier when the fuel was all gone.

Along with their feathers the children took up other modes of Indian
decoration of their persons. They did not quite come to war paint, but
they wore long strings of beads, principally of the _guaymuchel_ seeds.
These are flat black seeds that grow embedded in a thick sweetish pith
enclosed in a pod which grows on a big tree. The pithy part is highly
prized by the Indians for eating, and the Island Hawks gathered them
for that, and saved the seeds, which, when soft, are easily strung.

Then there were the tiny many-colored clamshells that they found so
plentiful on the beaches of the bird islands. They bored holes in these
with Marian’s big fat darning-needle and strung them into valuable
wampum belts. There were other seeds and beans that they strung, but
these were the staples.

One Christmas, Marian gave Jennie a string of bone beads. She had found
a number of the bones of some big bird, long, smooth, and hollow, and
she whittled them into little sections and strung them on a string of
her own hair. That same year her gift to Esther was a headdress of
pink feathers taken from a dead bird that Delbert had found washed up
on the beach one morning. To Delbert she gave a gay feather-trimmed
quiver for his arrows and two new arrow-points of bone, and to Davie
a number of little toys whittled out of driftwood. The children had
remembered their kindergarten lore that year, and each one made Marian
a little basket. They were rather loose and ill-shapen, but they were
the forerunners of better ones.

With the Muggywah their food problem was still further simplified.
They had lived so long on the Island now that they knew the tides,
when they would be high and when low, and always took these into
consideration along with the wind. With their gay striped blanket for a
sail and a paddle of some sort in the hands of each, with their trips
planned to have the tide in their favor as much as possible, they
could accomplish much more business than formerly. They could take a
dishpanful of boiled-down sea-water out to the salt reef, put it into
the rock-hollows there, where the sun finished the evaporation for
them, and maybe gather up a dish of dry and quite passably clean salt
to take back with them; go on to some other place and gather a lot of
clams for dinner, or perhaps oysters; go back again to Smugglers’,
put up the salt and attend to the clams, and strike off across the
bay toward some distant _estero_, which would lead back into good
_pitalla_ country, or perhaps to a _panal_ which they had seen some
days before and been too busy to gather in; and by night they would
have accomplished several times as much as when they had crept over
the water on the old log with only driftwood and poles for paddles, or
else had had to stay on land because the water was a little rough. With
the new firm mast which was in no danger of falling down, they could
utilize a wind that had been much too strong for them to tamper with
before, and with the children able to swim like little fishes, they
could brave a possible capsize or tumble overboard. Of course Marian
was not going to risk the great waves outside in the Gulf, and when the
wind blew the water into breakers on the Island, white and thunderous,
she kept her tribe busy in the pasture or the garden.

Some time during each day they took their bath and swim. If the water
was too rough on the seaward side, they took it in the harbor, where
it was quieter, but there were not so very many days when it was too
rough. Marian would keep her eye on Davie if they were out very far,
but she had little anxiety about the others. Sometimes they took the
Muggywah out into deep water and anchored her with a stone, and had
their swim from there.

They had had no storm yet equal to the one on the night of their
arrival on the Island, but during the fall after the Muggywah was
finished they had one which came nearer to it than any in the three
years. It lasted two days and two nights and certainly gave them a
miserable time. They turned the little burros out with their mothers
to save feeding and milking, and they collected vegetables and bananas
in the Cave, which they ate raw, not being able to have a fire to cook
by. Indeed, their precious embers were all put out, so that they had to
start anew with the fire-sticks when the storm was over.

They snuggled up in the Cave, not going out except when it seemed
absolutely necessary, and Marian sang over all the songs she knew and
which she had sung to them on rainy days a hundred times before,--or at
least it seemed so to her,--and told over all the stories they called
for and racked her brains for new ones.

The Cave had never been a roomy chamber, and now it reminded Marian of
a nest that is filled to overflowing with nestlings which are ready to
fly. Neither of the little girls could stand up in it now, not even in
the widest part, and Davie, fast growing up into a big, strong boy, had
to be very careful.

The first day dragged, the second crawled, and in the afternoon Marian
delivered herself of the emphatic remark, “We are not going to live in
this Cave through another rainy season; we will build us a house!”

The children were all struck dumb for a second and then fired volleys
of comments and questions.

“You see,” said Marian when quiet reigned again, “this Cave was all
right in the first place. You were all little then, and it was the
best we could do, but now,--why, see! Delbert is stretching up nearly
as tall as I am; Jennie and Esther take up as much room as all four of
you did then; we spread out so we can’t keep ourselves covered from the
mosquitoes; and I am sick and tired of camping out forever; I want a
home.”

“But, Marian,” said Jennie, “don’t you think some one will find us now
before long?”

“I think,” said Marian, “that there is no likelihood of any one but
Indians coming into San Moros. There is nothing to bring any one else
here, and, as you know, we have seen very few canoes in all the time we
have been here. I don’t understand it; it seems as if they would all
know about there being bananas and good water here and be coming all
the time, but evidently there are no settlements anywhere near, and the
poor Indian is not going very far from home in his canoe. Clarence must
have found out about the place from some old Indian who, I suppose, had
happened to stumble on to it somehow, and, as far as I know, Clarence
was the only white person who ever came here, but”--she paused and
looked impressively at the children--“some day, when we can sail the
Muggywah a great deal better than we do now, when Davie is big and
strong enough so that I dare risk him out there on the Gulf waves, and
when the rest of you are bigger and stronger than you are now, we’ll
stock the Muggywah up with provisions and we’ll go back to the Port
ourselves. I don’t dare risk it overland and I shall not try it by
water so long as there is any risk in it, but if no one comes for us
before then, the time will come when you children will be so big that
we can go in safety, and then we’ll go.”

“I’d be willing to take some risk,” said Delbert moodily.

“I’m not,” said Marian. “Four children mother left in my care when she
went to Guaymas that time, four I shall return to her. Your lives are
safe here. If I lost one of you in trying to get back, I should never
be happy again.”

“How well shall we have to swim?” asked Esther.

“Better than any of us do now,” said Marian. “We must be able to swim
so well that if the Muggywah should swamp or turn turtle out there, we
could all get to shore if we had to. It is a good deal, but we can do
it in time. Clarence could have done it, but it may take us several
years yet. We don’t dare go out of the bay yet, and we all get tired
out if we have much hard paddling to do; but to go to the Port in the
Muggywah would take several days. Unfortunately, she doesn’t go as
swiftly as the launch did.”

“If Clarence was here, he’d make her go better than she does,” said
Delbert.

“I think he would,” returned Marian; “but what we don’t know about
sailing her we must learn; and meantime, I am tired of living in this
little hole in the rocks, and the next job on hand is to build a house.
We can do it.”

The first thing to do usually is to select a site. Esther thought a
good place to put the new dwelling in would be down by the pier, where
the smugglers had had their house. It would be close to the water and
the garden. But that took them out of sight of the bay and the distant
Gulf, and mosquitoes and gnats were apt to be plentiful there at night,
and so it was not to be thought of. Jennie, too, still retained her
fear of the water during storms, and the higher they could get the
better it would suit her. One thing about the Cave which they meant to
improve upon in their new habitation was the fact that their view was
cut off by the big rock in front. To see what might be out on the water
they had to go clear past it, out of the house, as one might say. Of
course, it sheltered them from wind and rain to a great extent, but
Marian wanted to be sheltered from the elements and still be able to
see out on the water.

From the mound that had been the smugglers’ house projected a crotched
timber, and Marian suggested that they dig it out for their new
dwelling, though she had not yet decided where to build nor what
material to use.

They made some wooden rakes and shovels,--that is, they called them
that,--and these did a little better for the work than the old
dig-spoon and the little spade. As they dug and scraped, Marian told
them of the ancient cities which lay buried for centuries and then
were sometimes discovered and excavated and of the wonderful things
found in them. The children were very much interested, and straightway
they ceased to be Indians and became a band of eminent scientists
who had discovered an ancient, oh, a very ancient, city. It was very
interesting indeed, for, when you came to think of it, there was really
no knowing what you might or might not find.

They finally got the timber out. It was shorter than Marian had hoped,
but then the children wanted to go on and dig the whole mound over.
They had found a few bits of broken pottery, which they seemed to think
very wonderful, and they hoped for more riches.

So, as it seemed a pity to veto anything so exciting, Marian consented
to go on with the work. It seemed almost strange that they did not
find more things than they did. There were a number of other timbers
unearthed, but all but one of them were too rotten to be of use. There
was the half of a _metate_ stone[5] which they made a great deal of
use of afterwards, and a broken pitcher and more pieces of pottery,
but none of it big enough to be of any use. There were some very small
fragments of glass and quite a number of bricks; also a few rusty
scraps of iron, one of which had been an oarlock and one a knife. The
bricks were mixed in with a number of stones, all bearing the marks of
fire,--a cooking-place of some sort evidently.

  [5] A stone used for grinding Indian corn.

The children were most excited over the pitcher. It had a gay flower
on one side of it, and they watched eagerly for other fragments. They
found a few and fitted them together, but when all was done there was
still a hole in it as big as Delbert’s fist and a piece gone from the
nose, but they took as much pride in that old fragment as if it had
been really something valuable.

But to Marian the bricks appealed the most. She meant to have a real
fireplace in the new house, and they would aid very much. The crotched
timber, short though it was, would also come in very handy, and the
ground they had dug over so industriously was in fine condition for a
garden.

Every day they took their swimming-lesson. Now they began to practice
on long swims. They would take the Muggywah out, and while Marian or
Delbert paddled it along, or tended the sail if there was a breeze, the
rest would swim by the side. As soon as one got tired, all he had to
do was to climb in and take his turn with the paddle. Even Davie was
learning a little about paddling, and Jennie and Esther, now eleven and
nine years old, could manage very nicely.

Out on the blue water they made a pretty picture,--the Muggywah dancing
along with her gay striped sail, Marian in a garment constructed of
her old brown petticoat which reached to her knees but left neck and
arms bare, Davie’s old straw hat tied under her chin, her long braids
falling to her waist as she steered with the oar; the four children,
their slender bodies gleaming white in the water, splashing each other,
laughing, calling, now and again climbing on the seaweed deck to rest a
few minutes before plunging down again into the salty waves.

And when they had been out long enough, they would turn the Muggywah
and run for Smugglers’, pretending they were fleeing from their
enemies,--smugglers escaping from the government revenue men maybe, or
Indians returning from striking some decisive blow at their tribal foes.

Always there were the little burros to be tended, a little gardening to
be done each day, fresh water to be carried up to the Cave, and wood to
be gathered. Marian had learned that as long as she worked with them
her tribe did very well, but it was not well to leave them at separate
tasks. She still felt, too, the desire to have them within her reach,
to know for a certainty where each one was and that he or she was
safe. So they fished together, gathered wood together, worked together
in the garden.

Delbert sometimes went to the pasture alone when Marian was busy with
something else, yet as a rule he took Esther with him even there.
Jennie was more apt to stay with Marian, to help with the cooking, or
maybe just to sit on the rocks gazing out over the sea. As for Davie,
he stayed with Marian too. Delbert never wanted him along when he was
after game, for the little fellow was sure to make some sort of a
noise at the wrong time, which Delbert always found hard to forgive,
while Esther, on the other hand, would follow at his heels like a
well-trained dog, moving silently, stealthily, and her aim was nearly
equal to his own.




CHAPTER VIII

THE BUILDING OF THE WICKIUP


Delbert came laughing to his breakfast one morning. “I’ve found the
ideal spot for a house,” he said.

“Good for you!” said Marian, as she carefully raked out from the embers
the red snapper which had been stuffed with green peppers, wrapped in
green banana leaves, and buried in the hot coals and ashes overnight.
“All right, tell us about it as we eat.”

“It can’t be told. It will have to be seen to be appreciated,” he said.

“In that case we will go and see right after breakfast.”

Which they did, and he led them to the highest, rockiest point of that
end of the Island, facing the long, sandy point where the watermelons
were and where one could see both the bay and the harbor.

“Now,” said he, seating himself on a big boulder, “you observe the
lovely view we have. Nowhere on the whole Island can you get a better
one. With a little clearing there is a fair chance of a path down to
the pier. We are not so very far from the Cave either. And then, too,
you see, this nice high cliff would save our making more than three
sides to the house, and those big rocks there would be handy to brace
against.”

“Where would be our floor?” asked Jennie. “It’s all rocks here.”

But Marian was looking. The cliff, as Delbert called it, would save
making one side of the house, and several of the big rocks Jennie was
so scornful of were in a direct line for working into the walls, while
the others could be moved by means of crude levers that they could
work. The floor could then be leveled by building up with rocks from
the lower side. It would be impossible to dig holes to set posts in,
but, if one were not too particular about having the house symmetrical,
there were several fissures in the rocks where posts could be put, and
braced solid with other stones packed in about them. The face of the
big rock, or cliff, back of them was very irregular, and there were
several good places to set roof-timbers in.

The ground sloped rather steeply down to the sandy point and was
covered with brush, but a path, as Delbert said, could be cleared down
to the pier, and it would be a better one really than the one they were
using, too. Also a little tossing of the rocks to one side would clear
the way back to the Cave, where they could use the old path to the
beach. The heavy task would be bringing all the material up the hill,
but that would have to be done in any case; only, of course, if they
built at the Cave, for instance, they would not have to carry things so
far.

“Delbert,” she said, “what we are going to need, and need badly, is
lime.”

“Lime? What for?”

“To mix with sand and fresh water to make mortar to pack around the
roof-timbers, where we set them into the cliff there, and around the
posts, where we put them into this crevice below. Good mortar would set
and keep them solid.”

“They dig lime out of the ground, don’t they?”

“No; they dig a certain kind of rock out and burn it, and it turns into
lime; and they burn shells, and that makes lime too.”

“Shells? Well, we can get plenty of shells.”

“Yes, but I don’t know how to burn lime,--how long it takes or how it
ought to look when it is right,--and I don’t know exactly how to work
it afterwards either.”

“Can’t we experiment and find out? Burn just a few at first and see how
they work?”

“I guess we’d better, for I don’t want this house falling down on us in
a storm, and if I can get the frame of it absolutely solid, I’ll risk
but what we can manage the rest of it all right.”

“What will you make the roof of?” asked Jennie.

“Thatch,” promptly responded Marian. “Don’t you remember all that tall
thatch grass out beyond the lagoon? The Mexicans at the Port sometimes
make their whole houses of it. And, Delbert, there is another big job
ahead of us. We are going to need every pole that is in the corral
fence; we must build a good brush fence to hold in the burros, so that
we can have every stick and pole there, every piece of driftwood. I
guess we’d better clear that patch of brush beyond the garden. It will
be nicer cleared away, and we can pile it all on to the fence.”

They gathered a lot of shells that day, and, after a few experiments
in their cooking-fire, made a little pile of alternate shells and wood
and started it burning. Marian thought the shells ought probably to
burn slowly; her idea was to rake out a few every now and then and see
how things were going. Her only safe way was to mix a little mortar and
see if it set hard.

Between times they worked on the brush fence. They had not progressed
very far before they wished they had got at it at least two years
sooner, for in the midst of the tangled growth of bushes, choked and
stunted but still struggling to keep alive, they found a goodly number
of cotton plants.

These must have been, along with the palms and the bananas, a part of
the smugglers’ garden. There were three straggling rows, and most of
the bushes had a few sickly-looking cotton bolls on them. They are
never very large on that particular variety of plant, but none of these
were larger than a small hen’s egg; indeed, most of them more closely
resembled marbles. But they contained actual cotton, and with care and
some cultivation the plants would produce more and larger bolls. They
gathered them--what few there were--and put them with the cotton-tree
pods.

“As soon as the house is done, I shall have to see about a
spinning-wheel and loom,” said Marian, “and oh! if we had only found
them before!”

They cut out the brush systematically, clearing out, as thoroughly as
they could, each bush as they came to it. Delbert and the little girls
would take sticks and bend back the bushes, so that Marian could get at
them to chop them off near the ground with the hatchet; then with ropes
they would drag them to the corral and pile them on the fence. They
were trying to make it very solid and compact, also a little larger
than before.

In this way they managed to release every pole that had been in the
fence, and they piled them at one side to await the time when they
should be ready for them at the new house.

They were not so very successful with the lime. They burned a good many
shells before they produced what was at all satisfactory.

They found that there were not enough shells near by, but off across
the bay, at the mouth of one of the _esteros_, was a bank that had
seemed to be composed almost entirely of shells; so they took the
Muggywah and made several trips there, coming back loaded down with all
the shells they could carry. These shells were very old and broken,
but Marian thought they would probably make as good lime as fresh ones
would. There were other places, too, where shells were more plentiful
than near home, and they made trips after them.

While they were gathering the shells they cut a good many _pitalla_
poles, peeled the green bark off them, and left them to dry before
taking them home. Delbert used his stone hatchet for that work; he had
made a handle for it, as Marian said probably the first owner had, by
splitting a stick down and tying it above and below where the hatchet
was inserted, and while he could not, of course, chop wood with it, the
soft green _pitalla_ bark yielded to it very well. To be sure, it was
no better, even for this purpose, than the other hatchet, but think how
much more romantic it is to work with an ancient stone hatchet than
with an ordinary little modern steel one!

Delbert thought so much of that hatchet that Marian said he had better
give it a name, and told him about King Arthur’s sword Excalibur; but
when Delbert asked her if she thought that would be a good name for the
hatchet, she said she thought they had better modify it a little and
call it the “Exscalper” instead, because, though it might once have
been used to scalp with, it was not in that business now.

These _pitalla_ poles are hollow, but durable and comparatively
straight, and are much used in building the humbler homes of western
Mexico.

[Illustration: EXSCALPER]

The poor little overworked hatchet had to be sharpened many, many
times. There was no need now to put the whetstone beyond Davie’s reach.
He was too sensible to want to hide it, realizing as well as any of
them that what the whole community needs should not be selfishly
regarded as private property.

Delbert’s jack-knife had been worked and overworked till it was about
used up. One blade was broken, and the other leaned backward in a
most heartrending fashion. He did not use it much, but always had the
butcher-knife tucked into his belt beside the Exscalper.

The two case-knives had been sharpened, and the two little girls
carried them. Davie never felt at home without the dig-spoon. With much
use its edge had become as sharp as a knife, and he used it for that
right along. And he, like all the others, except Marian, always had his
bow and arrows slung at his back.

They did not take much time off the work till the season for “duck”
eggs came again; then they dropped everything and sailed for the
little white islands. It took only a part of a day to make the trip,
and they could get eggs enough for several days. They almost lived on
them through the season, and when it was over dropped back to their
vegetarian diet, varied only by an occasional meal of fish from a
night’s spearing.

When, after much time and labor expended, and many, many experiments,
Marian decided that there was enough lime to make the mortar to set
the posts and roof-timbers, they began the task of getting their
timbers up the hill.

They had thought that they could utilize Jackie for that, but he soon
undeceived them. He was not averse to carrying small loads of wood, but
when it came to pulling anything really heavy, Jackie called a halt,
and, moreover, remained halted till the load was removed.

They found no means of coaxing or persuasion that availed in the
least. It made not an iota of difference to Jackie whether those poles
remained at the top or the bottom of the hill, and if the children
wanted them at the top, why, let them take them there, that was all. In
the end they had to drag them up themselves. They tied ropes to them
and used main force. It was not a very long job when they once got over
trying to make Jackie do it for them. As for him, he skipped along
beside them, gay and carefree.

Then they debated long and earnestly as to just which crotched timber
should be placed in this place and which pole in that. They tried each
one in all the places to see where it would fit best, and everybody
expressed his opinion. They planned where to put the doors and the
window, and where was the best place for the fireplace.

When they had these momentous questions settled, Marian mixed her
mortar. Each upright was made solid by being packed tightly with big
rocks and all set in mortar; each roof-pole was set in the same way
where it rested on the cliff. At the same time Marian tried not to be
too prodigal with her mortar, for she wanted to have enough left to
lay up the chimney, at least where it would come above the roof and be
exposed to the wind and weather. And her supply of lime was not at all
large, for it took so long to gather up the shells, and often they had
not got them well burned after they were gathered.

After her timbers and poles were well set, she began on the fireplace.
For this they brought up the bricks and the blackened stones from the
smugglers’ old house; for some kinds of stones will crack and split
with heat, or even go so far as to pop into little pieces which fly
in all directions, and Marian wanted that fireplace built of tested
stones that would be up to no mischief. The stones she had cooked over
at the Cave were brought, and two nice, smooth, large ones from the
cooking-place at the beach. She used clay from the pasture as mortar
for the fireplace and the lower part of the chimney.

Once, on a trip up an _estero_ that wound past a little hill, they
had noticed a big flat rock that Delbert thought would make a fine
hearthstone. They could find other flat rocks, of course, but this
one had especially appealed to the boy, because it was much larger
and smoother than any other they had seen, and he thought it would be
nice to have the hearth of one big stone. Marian thought so, too, but
was afraid it was too big for them to manage. However, she finally
consented to try it. If they could get it on board the Muggywah at all,
they could find some way of getting it off again and up the hill and
into place.

After all, thought Marian, if her flock learned to achieve things, to
overcome difficulties, to persist in spite of obstacles, was that not
of itself a fair education? And to bring that great rock home would
certainly be a lesson in achievement.

So they went after it. They took plenty of ropes along and several
round pieces of driftwood to serve as rollers under the stone. They
found it readily. One side was so flat and smooth that it seemed as if
it must some time have been worked upon by human hands; the other was
rough and irregular, being much thicker at one end than at the other.
It was all Marian and Delbert could do to lift it alone, and even with
Jennie’s and Esther’s help it was none too easy. Fortunately it was not
far from the water’s edge. They got it on their two largest rollers,
and, by smoothing the way and prying the rollers along, they got it
down to the Muggywah.

Then it developed that it would be more easily got aboard at low than
at high tide. At low tide the Muggywah could be placed under a bank and
the big stone swung off on to her; at high tide it would have to be
lifted up to get it aboard.

So they made their preparations. They tied the Muggywah fore and aft,
and rigged up a tripod to assist in swinging the hearthstone over on to
her just where they wanted it. They pushed and pried the rollers, and
tugged and twisted till they had the big stone in position on the edge
of the bank, and then retired to the shade of a scrubby mesquite to
eat their lunch of turnips and carrots and drink Island water from the
bottles, while they waited for the tide to go out.

And when the lunch was finished, they sallied forth and hunted for
_panales_, clams, oysters, and, incidentally, arrowheads and more
hatchets.

When the Muggywah dropped below the bank, they rallied again to the
task in hand. The tripod was a big help; they had the hair rope for
that. Carefully they worked. It was not merely the getting of the big
stone that Marian had in mind; she wanted to be quite sure no one was
going to get hurt in the process.

“Delbert, don’t lift on that till you really strain yourself,” she
said. “Davie, you stand by that pole and see that it doesn’t lift up;
I don’t want your little fingers mashed under this. Esther, poke that
stick under there where Jennie’s fingers are. There, that’s right;
that holds it instead. Now, Jennie, you stand there where Delbert is.
Delbert, you and I will have to swing round below here now. Davie, hold
that pole down tight.”

Davie held valiantly with all his might. There was no danger of that
particular pole budging, but Marian wanted him out of the way, and knew
that the only way to be sure he would not slip in at the wrong minute,
and maybe get a finger jammed before she could help him, was to keep
him busy elsewhere.

“There, now, you see, part of the weight comes on the tripod. Carefully
now, Esther. Jennie can do that alone now; you jump down and be ready
to help here.”

In the midst of it all she began to laugh. “Delbert, if it takes all
this fuss to get it aboard, how in the world are we ever going to get
it off again? We may have to dump it into the harbor yet.”

“Not much we don’t,” muttered Delbert between his teeth.

“Well, all steady now! Gently there, Jennie! That’s right! Now jump
down and help Esther. There, there she is, neat as a whistle. Look how
it pushes the Muggywah down, but it’s all right. Knock up that tripod
pole there, Delbert. We’ll have the rope off. Where did you put your
oysters, Jennie? Oh, I see. Well, drop ’em in here; we must be starting
back. It will take us all day to-morrow to get this hearthstone off the
deck, and two more to get it up the hill, as like as not.”

As a matter of fact, it took a great deal longer than that, but they
did not work at it all the time. They rigged up another tripod to
help them swing it off the Muggywah, and by aid of rollers got it to
the foot of the hill safely. There they tied it to something to make
sure it would not slip and roll down on them, and little by little, as
they felt inclined, they pushed it up the hill. Sometimes a day or two
would go by without its being touched, and then, some morning when they
felt vigorous, they would get at it with levers and rollers and work it
up the hill a little farther. Davie got quite expert in slipping the
stones in back of it to block it up while they rested.

In the course of time it was taken into the frame of the new house and
settled into place, being blocked with stones till it did not wiggle in
the least; and as they stood back surveying it, they all felt that it
was worth all the trouble it had been to get it. The fireplace itself
was built up waist-high when the hearthstone was put in place.

Marian was planning a good handy place to cook over, and several of
the scraps of iron were used with that idea. The old twisted, rusty
oarlock, for instance, was converted into a hook to hang the kettle
on at one side, and there were various little places made, to put
things on to keep hot or to go on slowly cooking. At the proper height
a mantel-shelf was put in, too, a smooth piece of driftwood. It had
once been a board about a foot wide by three or three and a half long,
but it had been tossed and beaten till the edges were thin and ragged.
Marian fitted it across and surveyed it with pride.

It seemed as if the longest and most tiresome part of the work was the
building of the chimney. Massive was the word for it. It was continued
up pretty high. Marian climbed up on the roof-timbers and had the
children hand her the stones and mortar.

They got well tired of the job before it was finished. At the last,
Marian herself would help gather a pile of stones, and then, after
mixing the mortar, would climb up on the roof and work away, and
Delbert would hand up the rocks one by one and the mortar in the little
wooden pail. She used the dig-spoon and the little spade for trowels,
assisted by a piece of old board she had whittled into shape.

Yet, after all, considering how tiresome it must have been, the
children were pretty good about it. Delbert never complained of the
monotony, and though the little girls were quite sure Marian was
building that chimney higher and thicker than was at all necessary,
they did their work cheerfully.

They stopped when their good lime gave out, but Marian was sure that
she had it high enough to draw well at all times, and so big and
solid that it would not blow over in a storm, even if it had not been
protected to some extent by the high rock, or cliff, back of it.

She would have been glad of more lime, but it was such a task to gather
and burn the shells that she decided to finish the house without it.
They gathered up their _pitalla_ poles now, clean, creamy-white poles,
which they fastened in place by tightly lashing with small ropes. Where
they needed them in the walls they packed the end that rested on the
ground with rocks and mud and tied the upper ends. The house began to
take shape rapidly. The _pitalla_ poles were easily split when smaller,
finer pieces were needed.

Finally they were ready for the thatch. It would take a great many
trips to get that. They knew of but one place where it grew, and that
was away up by the lagoon. They would go and cut grass, or rather dig
it out by the roots, till they had enough for a bundle for each one.
These bundles were graduated in size, of course, but Marian allowed
no shirking. Nobody really tried to shirk but Davie. He didn’t like
to carry thatch-grass down to the _estero_, and he tried all kinds of
excuses to get out of it, but Marian was firm.

“Every little helps,” she said. “It is work that you can do, and you
must.”

So, in spite of his grumblings and groanings, Davie carried his little
bundle as well as the rest. They would make several trips, stacking
the grass in a pile at the pier; then they would stop and carry it all
to the top of the hill to the new house, and Marian and Delbert would
put it on the roof. Jackie helped them there. He did not mind carrying
quite a bundle of grass up the hill, for it was light and did not tax
his strength. It was pulling that Jackie objected to.

They put the grass on very thick, tying each little bunch very firm and
tight to the split _pitalla_ prepared for it. Here again the little
girls felt very sure that Marian was doing a much better job than was
at all necessary. They were quite sure that much less grass would do
just as well. But Marian, remembering the fury of that first storm on
the Island, was not going to run any risks, and Delbert backed her
up in her determination. So for weeks they worked at it, digging and
tugging at the grass up by the lagoon, often cutting their fingers on
the sharp edges, toiling down through the hot sun to the _estero_ with
their bundles, tying them on the Muggywah, and then paddling back home.
Then, when Marian and Delbert climbed up on the roof, the little girls
handed up bunch after bunch of the rank, heavy grass to the two above,
who tied them with the stout little cords that they sometimes took a
day off to make. And finally the whole roof was covered with a thick
mat of the rustling grass, the long loose ends of each row hanging well
down over the root ends of the row below. Several poles were fastened
across to hold it down better and make it all the surer that the wind
would not get in underneath and undo any of their labor.

Then there were the sides to come next. Marian had thought that they
would maybe thatch them too, but the children were tired of going after
grass. Indeed, they had gathered all the best of it; what was left was
so much shorter and thinner that it would take much more time to get
it. So she cast about for other material nearer home.

There were several big rocks in a line with the walls, two of which
were immovable, but there were several others that they succeeded
in prying up and swinging round into place. In between them Marian
built up a wall even with their tops, using for her mortar the shells
that had not been well burned, mixing them with clay brought from the
pasture. It was very tiresome bringing it, but it did nicely after they
got it there, for it dried hard and smooth and would stay so as long as
it was kept dry at least.

One thing Marian was particular about was to use only the fresh water
for her mortar. It was more trouble than it would have been to use
salt, but she had heard some of the men at the Port once talking about
some one who had made a failure of a kiln of bricks because he had
used salt water in the making. She did not remember what they had said
was the reason why the salt was bad in that particular place, nor just
what effect it had had, but she intended to run no risks; so her mortar
was all mixed with water from the well on the pier side of the Island.

But she could not build up the entire wall that way, and by the time
she had it up as high as the big rocks there were no more loose stones
near them and she had used up every bit of her burnt shells. All hands
were very tired, too, of lugging earth from the pasture, and they could
find no clay nearer home.

She turned to the banana-patch then, and they tore the big stalks
into strips of uniform size and used these to weave in basket-fashion
between the uprights and the split _pitallas_. It did very well except
that, as with everything else, Marian insisted upon its being done so
well that it seemed to take forever to do it. They also used the dried
leaves, weaving them in and out and pounding them down so as to have a
good thick wall. Some kinds of brush they used, too, fine branches that
had no thorns, or at least no large ones, but the fibrous strips of
the banana stalks were the main material used.

This part of the task was something they could all work at. Even Davie
learned quickly how to weave in brush and banana stalk and work and
pound them down. Up under the eaves they were not quite so particular
to have it thick and firm.

Finally it was all done. There remained now but the floor, the doors,
and the windows.

The floor must be leveled and made as smooth as possible. It was so
rocky and rough that it seemed the only way would be to build up from
the lower side with stones. There were plenty of stones, but they had
to be brought from some little distance now, as everything loose in the
neighborhood had been pretty well cleaned up. Marian packed stones in
as well as she could, and when it was comparatively level, filled in
the chinks with pebbles and wads of banana leaves, and then they lugged
up pailful after pailful of sand from the beach.

Jackie helped here too. They made a pair of sacks by folding a blanket
over once and sewing up the ends. This could be thrown over Jackie’s
back. They put in as much sand as they thought he would stand, and
then, when the rest of them had their loads ready, they would all go
up the hill together. Some one had to watch pretty closely to see that
the load did not slip off over Jackie’s tail on the steep parts of
the path, but he carried so much more than any of them cared to that
it paid to use him. Of course, if they had really put much of a load
on him, he would probably have balked as was his habit, but they were
careful not to do that. Marian thought that he would gradually get used
to carrying loads and be a great help to them some time in the future.

They poured the sand on the floor, where it ran down into the cracks
and little holes, till after two or three days of pretty steady work
the cracks seemed to be all filled up and their floor was level and
smooth.

Then they went to Bonanza Cove, where in the storms the seaweed had
been pounded and churned and tossed far up on the beach; there it had
dried and bleached in the suns of later days till now it could be
peeled up in great white layers. They took this dried seaweed in as big
flakes as they could carry without breaking it, and carpeted every
bit of the floor, clear up to the hearthstone. But Marian was a little
afraid this was too near the fire for safety; so they hunted till they
found enough big flat stones to lay a row all around the hearth. Then,
by wetting the seaweed, they could pack this row down to a level with
the hearthstone, and finally, after filling with sand all the little
corners where the stones did not just match, they felt pretty certain
that no sparks would fly out far enough to set their carpet on fire.

Then they moved in. It was not so tremendous a task. There was no
packing or unpacking to do, no bickering with drivers of moving-vans.
They simply gathered up their bedding and bags of feathers and dumped
them down in one corner on the floor, and then brought over the few
utensils from the Cave. A very few more trips brought over all the odds
and ends that had accumulated,--pretty shells and other small treasures
such as children always collect.

The new home was very irregular in shape, for their material had been
far from regular or uniform and they had had to place their posts and
poles where the unyielding rocks would receive them best, but the room
averaged about eight feet by fifteen, the eaves being about six feet
lower than the side built against the cliff.

There were two narrow doors and one window, and for the doors Marian
made a light frame of split _pitalla_ tied together at the corners
and then wove a sort of mat of palm-leaf across them. This was too
light and thin to be trusted in a storm; so of stouter material, split
_pitalla_, but heavier pieces, she made a pair of large, heavy frames
and covered these with thatch-grass, for which they made another trip
to the lagoon. Even then it was not quite enough, and she finished with
palm-leaves, the old dried ones that were not strong enough for ropes,
but could be used whole. Some of these, too, she tied on the outside
of the house where the wattling seemed to be a little thin; they would
help a little when the rains came.

The light doors she fastened on permanently with fiber ropes, but the
heavy storm doors were left outside, where they were out of the way
ordinarily, but could be quickly put into place and tied over the
others when a storm came up. She did not bother to make a mat frame
for the window, but contented herself with the one heavy thatch one,
which was fastened across the top so that it could be swung out and up
and be propped with a stick, thus making a shade over the opening like
an awning; it could also be swung down and tied tight whenever desired.

Inside there were several shelves put up by swinging them from the
roof, and their largest piece of driftwood, laid across two rocks, made
a very good table. These and the mantel-shelf were enough to hold all
their dishes and other valuables. The bedding, folded up neatly in a
corner, did not take up much room. The fireplace did not smoke, and it
was very convenient indeed for the cooking.

At night the children lay down where they chose on the clean, springy
seaweed floor, and pulled a part of a blanket or a rabbit-skin robe or
the big cape over them and slept the sleep of the healthy till morning.

They had no lamp or lantern, but the bark of the _pitalla_ burned with
a white light that made the inside of the little house very cheery and
cozy of an evening, and was a good enough light for anything they might
want to do.

They had begun the house at the end of one rainy season; they had
it finished just as the next one was upon them. They went with the
Muggywah and gathered up all the _pitalla_ bark, now nicely dry, which
had been stripped from their poles and which they had not already
brought in, and stored it in the Cave to keep it dry, and when they had
that full they piled another heap in another cave, where it would be
partially protected from the wet.

They gathered, too, a big pile of driftwood near the house,--light
stuff such as the waves were always tossing up, and as much heavy stuff
as they could get for back-logs to bury at night, so as to have good
embers in the mornings when it was cold, for a bed of hot embers was a
comfort indeed to start in with.

The children had begun calling the new home a wigwam, but Marian said
she was quite sure that a wigwam was always made of skins stretched
over poles, but she believed--she was not quite _sure_, but she
believed--that a wickiup was made of wattles with a thatch or dirt
roof; so, of course, theirs was a wickiup.

Rainy days had no terrors for them now, and no dreariness. They would
do what was needful to make the little burros comfortable, gather into
the wickiup what food and fuel was needed for the next day and night,
close the storm door, on the side the wind and rain were coming from
and open the other to let in plenty of light.

A very small fire would keep the room comfortable, and they could sit
warm and dry, and do whatever amused them best,--weave baskets, or
make little ropes, or sharpen knives or the hatchet. Rainy days were
good times to crochet fiber into bags or clothing and to bore holes in
wampum. Delbert made himself a beautiful wampum belt. It was woven of
fiber about two inches wide, and he covered it with little shells sewed
on through two little holes bored in each one. It was a great deal of
work, but he was very much interested in it, and showed such ability in
boring holes without breaking the shells, and in sewing them on so that
they made a pretty pattern, that Marian was as proud of him for doing
it as he was proud of the belt when it was done.

It was that summer that Marian took up the long-neglected task of
the children’s education. She was handicapped certainly; her sole
schoolroom equipments were half a lead-pencil, a piece of blue chalk
half as big as her thumb, which chanced to be in her workbag, and a
part of a newspaper that had lain in the bottom of their lunch-basket
and had a dozen times only narrowly escaped being used up for something
else. This paper consisted mainly of advertisements of real estate for
sale, male and female help wanted, and a page of sporting news and
market reports, with half a column of mineral discoveries. It was not
an ideal primer, but it would do to teach Davie his letters from.

There was a place on the rock wall that was comparatively smooth, and
Marian made it more so by rubbing it with flat stones small enough to
be handled easily and as much like a grindstone in composition as she
could find. She would rub and rub, throw on a little water, and rub
again, and she kept that up till she had a space that would serve very
well as a blackboard. Of course the blue chalk did not last long, but
then they used bits of charcoal, and if bones were burnt just right
they made a very good substitute for chalk. A bunch of mescal or
banana fiber made a very good eraser.

There were several pieces of driftwood smooth enough to do for slates,
and one or two bits of flat stones also. Clamshells were useful. They
had quite a number of these, as big as saucers, that they had used as
dishes. Marian took them now and made school readers of them. With
the lead-pencil she wrote lessons on them, Mother Goose verses, bits
of poetry that did not have too many big words in them, remembered
proverbs, and little stories. When the three older children could read
and spell all the words in them, she washed them out and wrote another
lesson.

Arithmetic was taught by means of the blackboard and little shells,
stones, and seeds. Delbert always did his figuring on the hearthstone.
He would stretch out on his stomach and elbows, his chin in his hands,
and his feet kicking at all angles.

The other children had to give him a wide berth or they got all kinds
of cracks. Jennie complained that she could not think lying down,
so she always used the blackboard. Esther used it too, not because
her brain would not work horizontally, but because when Delbert had
the hearth there was no room for any one else there, and he made his
figures as big as all out-of-doors anyway. After all, mental arithmetic
was more satisfactory, and Marian drilled them pretty well in that.

The paper-tree proved a treasure to them. It is, I think, in some
respects a distant cousin of the birch. At any rate, its bark can be
peeled off in the same way, only it is much thinner--of paperlike
thickness, or thinness rather--and partially transparent. When she
could get good pieces of this, Marian never failed to acquire them, and
she made books of it, clumsy, of course, but serving a little better
than the clamshells.

She was constantly experimenting for ink, testing every juice she came
across that seemed at all likely. Pens she could make, as her ancestors
had before her, of big quills. Her little penknife had never been much
used except to whittle out toys for Christmas, and it was just the
thing to make quill pens with.

Fortunately, Delbert and the girls were eager to learn. They did not
want to be behind their mates when they got back to them, and as they
were all three pretty bright, Marian’s task was much easier than it
would otherwise have been.

But Davie was not over anxious to spend time on what seemed to him so
useless. He was more backward than either of the others, too, and with
him Marian had need of the most loving patience, also of ingenuity in
thinking up ways to get him interested. Fortunately, she was patient,
and, moreover, loved the little fellow so fervently that she would have
developed patience even had she been naturally devoid of it.




CHAPTER IX

DAVIE’S PANAL HUNT: AND WHAT CAME OF IT


Davie was really getting to be quite a chunk of a boy. He was different
from Delbert,--more square and solid of build, of quieter and calmer
temperament too, slower in his motions and also in his thought and
speech. In features he resembled Esther more than any of the others.

He was a very straightforward little fellow. No matter how much he
differed from the others, he never saw any reason for concealing his
opinions or denying his actions. He did not talk much, but seemed to
do his share of thinking, and when he reached a conclusion was apt
to cling to it rather tenaciously. He usually yielded to Marian’s
authority with a pretty good grace, but as he grew older he was more
and more apt to disregard the wishes of the others when they crossed
his own. Jennie could, as a rule, manage him pretty well, for she was
very diplomatic about it, and seemed to have a gift for knowing when to
coax and pet him into doing what she wanted him to and when to twist
him adroitly round her fingers in some other way.

Esther, too, though she was not so successful as Jennie, rarely clashed
with her little brother, but Delbert, having perhaps less of the guile
of the serpent in his make-up, often did clash in a small way. He
thought that as he was older his wishes should have the preference as
a matter of course. But Davie held other ideas. He did not propose
to have Delbert bossing him just because he was bigger, and often he
was stubborn just for the pleasure of plaguing his older brother. The
trouble was never very deep-seated. Two minutes after an explosion
of hot words on Delbert’s part had called Marian’s attention so that
she could settle the matter, whatever it was, the little boy would be
cuddled up beside the older one, sweet-tempered and smiling as you
please.

Delbert never seemed to lay Davie’s naughtiness up against him after
the immediate occasion had passed. But one day there were after effects
which neither of them had counted upon.

Davie had gone with Delbert and Esther up into the pasture to see how a
certain _panal_ was growing, Marian and Jennie being detained at the
wickiup. The _panal_ was still too small to be molested, so they went
back, skirting the high, rocky part of the Island that lay overlooking
the shallow part of the harbor. They went down to the water once and
then climbed up again, and Delbert suggested that they go back to the
level pasture and follow the path home as the quickest way of getting
there. Davie, for no reason save that Delbert wanted to go back to the
path, decided that he wanted to continue climbing over the rocks; he
said he was looking for _panales_.

Delbert did not want to go on and leave him behind, for they were a
long way from the wickiup, and Davie was little. But he coaxed to no
avail and issued positive orders with as little result. Esther, too,
tried her hand, but it was useless. Davie continued wending his way
along the roughest, rockiest part, “looking for _panales_.”

Delbert fretted and fumed, and presently they came to where Davie must
come back to the level land or else crawl along where it was really
dangerous for him to go.

Had it been Jennie, she would have looked the other way, started a
conversation with Esther about something a long way off, and pretended
to forget all about the little boy, and he, finding himself no longer
in the lime-light, as it were, would have quietly come back and trailed
along in the path behind her. But Delbert was pretty well worked up
anyway, and he was truly alarmed for Davie’s safety in that spot.

“Now, Davie, you will have to come back,” he said.

“No, go along here,” returned Davie with true Indian brevity.

“Why, you can’t! Honest, Davie, it isn’t safe. Marian wouldn’t let you
if she were here. Come on, now.”

Davie hesitated a minute, debating whether he should attempt farther
advance where he was or go back with the others. To jump across to the
next rock was almost beyond his daring, but it would be having his own
way. He made, or appeared to make, preparation for it.

A quick, hot wave of anger flashed over Delbert. He started forward,
intending to catch his naughty little brother and carry him back along
the path by force, at least till they were well past the rocky danger.
He knew he could do it, once he got hold of him.

Davie knew it, too, and made all haste to jump before Delbert could
get to him. Perhaps he could have made it, if he had done it with
deliberation, but, as it was, he slipped, missed his mark, lost his
balance, and, slipping, failed to regain it and fell.

Delbert and Esther never will forget the sickening horror of that
moment. They rushed forward and scrambled down the rocks as best they
could to where the little boy lay, making no effort to get up, but
screaming at the top of his lungs.

Esther was crying, too, but Delbert managed to control himself enough
to refrain from that, and, frightened as he was, horrified through and
through, he could still reflect that though such a fall might easily
have broken his neck, Davie’s yells proved he was still very much alive.

[Illustration: DAVIE’S FALL]

When he reached his little brother and tried to pick him up he screamed
louder than before, if possible, and then Delbert saw that one leg
was bent in a way that proved even to his inexperience that the bone
was broken. There was also a cut on the head that was bleeding badly.
With white face and shaking fingers Delbert examined the head and was
relieved to find that the skull did not seem to be broken, so he took
off the rag that was tied about his own head to keep the hair out of
his eyes, and tied it about Davie’s to stop the bleeding. There was
only salt water to be had just there, and Delbert did not know enough
to know whether that would do at all to put on or not, but he knew it
would make the wounds smart badly, so he did not risk washing them with
it.

Esther had already started off to carry the news to Marian. Delbert
almost wished he had gone himself, as he would probably have reached
the wickiup a few minutes sooner. Still, supposing Davie were hurt
inside! Supposing he were to die before Marian got there!

If Delbert had been older and wiser, he would have known that only
about half of Davie’s yells were from the pain of his injuries, and
the other half were from fright at the pain. As it was, not daring to
move the little fellow a bit lest he hurt him more, he could only curl
down beside him and, putting his arms around him, kiss him and talk as
soothingly as he could.

One arm that lay under him Davie did not try to move, but he put the
other about Delbert’s neck and sobbed, “I--want--to go--back--to--to
the--path, Dellie!”

A week later Delbert sat down and laughed till his sides ached over the
memory of that speech, but at the time it did not strike him as being
at all funny.

As soon as she got back to the smooth ground, Esther ran like a little
deer, ran and ran, stumbled and fell twice, and picked herself up and
ran again till she was out of breath, and walked till she regained it,
and ran again. She was all out of breath when she stumbled into the
wickiup.

Marian was not there. She and Jennie had started down the new path for
water, but in answer to Esther’s wild calls they quickly returned. The
tears had made streaks through the dirt that Esther got on her face
when she fell, and she was sobbing so she could not talk straight.

“Oh, he wouldn’t mind Dellie, Marian, he wouldn’t mind Dellie, and he
fell way down on the rocks, and he’s all broken and bleedy!”

It was not a very reassuring way to tell news certainly. Jennie began
to cry, but though Marian’s face went white, she remained calm.

“Esther, who fell?”

“Davie. He wouldn’t mind Dellie--”

“There, there! Listen, Esther! Esther, is he dead?”

“N--n--not yet,” gasped Esther, “but he’s all bleedy and Dellie says
his leg is broke, and he is crying awfully.”

Marian drew a long breath; then, “Jennie, stop crying, so you can help
me,” she said. “Esther, sit down there and get your breath. Where is
Davie? Where did he fall?”

“Down by Little Pig Cove. He wouldn’t go in the path, and he tried to
jump and he fell, and Dellie stayed with him.”

Marian pressed her hands tightly to her temples for a moment, and in
that moment thought of all that she could do.

“Esther,” she said, “fold that blanket to take back with us. Did
Delbert have his good lariat with him? Yes? Then see if you can find
another stick like this out in the pile. Jennie, hold this jar so I can
pour what water is in the demijohn into it. There, it isn’t full, but
we can’t stop to go for more now.”

Esther appeared with the two sticks. Marian made a bundle of their old
ragged clothes and gave it to Jennie to carry; then, taking the jar of
water and the blanket, she followed Esther’s lead as fast as she could.

When they got back to where the boys were, they found Davie still lying
where he fell, sobbing, but not quite so wildly as at first.

Delbert, white-faced and shaken still, crouched beside him.

Marian examined the child as well as she could. The cut on the head
was already ceasing to bleed, and the other scratches and bumps, ugly
though they were, did not alarm her, but at sight of that little
crooked leg her heart sank. How could she set a bone? She mistrusted
that the under arm was injured too, and goodness only knew how much
more.

She set Jennie and Delbert to making a stretcher out of the two sticks
and the blanket, while she and Esther hunted up some sticks as nearly
straight as they could find to make a temporary splint for the leg,
till they could get back to the wickiup.

Every time they moved the leg, Davie screamed and beat at them with
his good arm. He made no attempt to move the other one. At last Marian
ordered Jennie and Esther to hold him and his pugnacious little arm,
while she and Delbert managed the leg.

Jennie began to cry. “O Marian, don’t! don’t!” she sobbed.

Marian sat up and pushed back some loose strands of hair that straggled
over her eyes.

“Jennie,” she said, “we have _got_ to hurt him. We can’t help it. We
have _got_ to get him back to the wickiup, where I can fix it--as well
as I can. If we don’t get it right, he will be a cripple all his life.
The pain won’t kill him; just the pain won’t, dearie. He may faint, but
it won’t be any worse. Don’t make it worse by your crying.”

So Jennie controlled herself as well as she could, and she and Esther,
steeling their hearts, held the little arm and head and shoulder down,
while Marian straightened the leg a little and arranged it so it would
be held fairly steady as they carried him back. Then she turned him
over and examined the arm. She could not see that it was hurt, but
she knew it must be. As gently as she could, she lifted him on to the
stretcher and gave him a big drink of water. Then they started back.
Davie and Esther cried all the way.

At the wickiup they laid him as gently as they could on the floor, but
he screamed with the pain nevertheless. Marian set all three of the
others to bringing up water, and she put some on in the little kettle
over the fire.

She washed off the blood and dirt and tore her bathing-suit into
bandages. Fortunately, it was clean, having been washed and boiled in
fresh water, as it chanced, since she had used it, and she put a clean
bandage around the head in the place of the rather dirty rag that
Delbert had tied it with. Then she gathered all the little pieces of
board they had, and while the others brought the water, she worked at
splints.

When she had got these ready, she straightened her patient out on the
floor on his back, and undid the first hasty bandaging and tried to
straighten his leg till it would look and feel just like the other one.
Jennie and Esther were too much wrought up by Davie’s suffering to be
of much service, but Delbert set his white lips together and held the
screaming child firmly. At last they thought it seemed to be right and
bandaged it up.

“Marian,” said Delbert, “his shoulder cracked awful funny just now.”

After a little examination she said, “I guess it must have been twisted
out of place a little and slipped back in. You see, he moves it now,
and it certainly feels just like the other one, at any rate.”

She felt him all over, but could find nothing more that seemed like
broken bones, for which she was devoutly thankful.

She had an idea that Davie must not be moved at all for a week at
least, and as a precaution against this she tied the bandaged leg to
the side of the wickiup. For the life of her she could not remember
how long it took a broken bone to heal, though she must some time have
heard some one say; and of course the others were no wiser. Delbert had
it running in his head that it was three weeks, but Jennie said, “No,
that is how long it takes a chicken to hatch.”

“Anyway,” said Esther, “when it does grow together it itches awfully. I
heard Mr. Faston say so.”

Davie was so exhausted that he slept quite a while that afternoon, but
by night he was awake and feverish, and, of course, very fretful.

Marian kept pouring a little cold water on his bandages. She was sure
that was the right thing to do, and she sat beside him, soothing him by
every device she could think of and feeling her heart grow heavier and
heavier as his fever rose and he struggled to turn and toss, and moaned
and cried.

At night the little girls slept, and Delbert too to some extent, but
there was no sleep for Marian. She was afraid there was some internal
injury, not knowing that the fever was the natural result of the shock
and hurt and only what any doctor would have expected.

She kept the bandages wet with cold water and wrung out hot cloths and
applied them to the sore and lame spots. She bathed and rubbed and
worked over Davie and she kept her voice cheerful and her eyes smiling,
though a sickening fear held her heart.

It was days and days before she could feel at all easy, but the fever
departed, the swellings went down, and no more lame spots came to
light. Davie ate well and slept fairly well too. He began to regain his
old sunny ways, and the tension on Marian’s nerves relaxed. But, of
course, she had to stay by him pretty closely; so the other children
performed the business of the day alone.

They attended to the garden and went down after each tide to see if
there were any fish in High-Tide Pool, because, though they never
found a whole school in there as they had on that day soon after their
arrival, still there were very likely to be one or two lurking in the
dark hole in the rocks, and one child would wade in and scare them out,
and Delbert, standing ready with the spear, would gather them in. There
were quite a number of places among the rocks where fish, and often
big fish, were to be found after high tide. If they could get them
that way, it saved going at night, and of course they could not well
do that now. Anyway, it took quite a pile of _pitalla_ to light them
for a night’s spearing, and _pitalla_ was getting scarce in the near
neighborhood.




CHAPTER X

DELBERT’S BIG GAME


Delbert was getting tired of small game now. He began to plan for deer
and pork. He made himself a new bow, larger and stronger than he had
ever had before, with a new, strong string, and he made new arrows
tipped with the best points he could get, and then he and Esther went
deer-hunting.

Jennie always stayed with Marian, to help with Davie and because she
really did not like hunting. She could not bear to kill things nor to
see them killed. She carried her bow and arrows and shot at marks along
with the rest of them, and sometimes at game, but she never seemed to
enjoy it when she hit it.

As soon as it was light enough for them to see their way at all,
Delbert and Esther would creep out and try for a close approach to
the deer. Sometimes they did not come back till about noon, their
only breakfast having been some raw vegetables carried with them, a
few bananas usually, which they carried in their quivers with their
arrows,--sometimes not even that. Marian had no hopes of their ever
getting a deer, but she never discouraged them. She and Jennie could
manage Davie and tend the little burros, and the lessons could be
studied in the afternoons. Davie, poor boy, certainly had to take his
lessons with great regularity in those days; there was no way he could
escape from them. Marian had had to loosen his bandages a number of
times, but she did not yet dare take them off, though she had not kept
him strapped to the house very long.

Marian now began to study very earnestly on the spinning and weaving
problem. Rabbit-skin clothing was very unsatisfactory, as were the
crocheted fiber things, too, though for different reasons, but little
King David’s misfortune had simply wiped every other kind out of
existence. What with bandages and towels, there was not one single
thin, worn garment left, only a little pile of frayed rags. Marian took
her swim at night now. It was imperative that new clothes be acquired
in some way, and she thought and thought, and was just beginning to
see light on the subject when Esther came tearing in one morning,
breathless and disheveled, to announce that Delbert had killed his deer.

His sisters could scarcely credit the story, but Marian took the path
straightway, leaving Jennie to keep Davie company and give him his
frequently demanded drinks of water and dampen his bandages and see if
he had remembered from yesterday the little words written on the big
clamshell. Marian found Delbert dancing a veritable war dance round a
fair-sized buck. The thing had happened almost as far back as Little
Pig Cove, where Davie had fallen, and, in a way, the two occurrences
were somewhat similar.

Delbert and Esther had crept along that morning, as luck would have it,
in time to witness a very serious disagreement between two bucks. The
wind was in their favor; otherwise they might not have got quite so
close to where the two were struggling together.

Perhaps one of them had thought they should cross the pasture on the
level land, perhaps the other wanted the herd to hunt _panales_ among
the rocks. Delbert never knew what the quarrel was about. He had read
of such things, but this was his first chance to see anything of the
sort. His blood leaped, and his eyes sparkled. Esther, a little behind
him, practically inclined, fitted an arrow to her bow and shot. In her
excitement the shaft went wide of the mark; so much so that no one, not
even the deer, noticed it at all, a result which so sobered her that
she did not try again. Delbert was actually forgetting to shoot at all,
which Esther afterwards declared was worse than shooting and missing,
even as wildly as she had.

But the stronger of the two bucks was beginning to push the other
about, and in the scuffle they worked nearer and nearer to the edge of
the rocks, though it is hardly likely this was other than accidental.
Probably they were so taken up with their tussle that they did not
notice where they were going. But presently a rock loosened and
slipped, and then, before they could realize what was happening, a
great mass of rocks and earth and bushes fell thundering down the steep
to the level strip below.

Esther screamed and ran back; the group of deer which had been watching
the combat also fled, and did not stop till they had reached the
safety of the farther pasture. One of the fighting bucks was able to
spring back and save himself, and he fled with the rest, but the other
one went down with the avalanche.

[Illustration: HE COULD SEE THE BUCK STRUGGLING TO FREE HIMSELF]

Delbert, with a shout, ran forward and began clambering down where it
was not so steep and appeared to be perfectly safe. In a minute he
could see the buck struggling to free himself from the mass of débris.
Even then he did not think of the trusty bow and arrows he had taken
such pains with for this very occasion, but, pulling out his long
knife, he ran forward, and, by the time Esther had scrambled down
beside him, the deer had ceased to kick, and Delbert was tugging at the
rocks that still partly covered it. He sent her post-haste for Marian,
and when they got back to him, he had the deer pulled out on a clear
space and was already beginning to skin it.

Neither of them knew a thing about cutting up such an animal except
what they dimly remembered used to be done at “Grandpa’s” at
hog-butchering time, but they managed to get the skin off after a
fashion and they chopped and cut away at the rest, breaking the bones
with a stone or the hatchets when they could not find a joint.

The discarded parts they would leave there, for it was too far to carry
them to the watermelon-patch for fertilizer, and there were plenty of
the scavengers of the sea waiting for them to go so that they could
clean up after them. The good meat they tied up in the skin, and they
swung it on a pole and carried it home between them, Esther carrying
the hatchet and knives.

It was past noon when, blood-stained and weary, they arrived at the
wickiup. Jennie was getting anxious, and Davie was decidedly fretful.
Delbert was then sent out to the salt reef to bring back all the salt
there was there. They would need it besides what they already had
in the wickiup, for Marian was determined not to lose a bit of that
meat. She cleaned up the pail and hung it over the fire too, for the
kettle would not hold all the bones. Some of the ribs were put to
roast immediately, and then she set to work cutting up and salting and
hanging up to dry. They stretched a line out in the sun and hung the
pieces over that.

The skin would fill several long-felt wants, one of which was to
provide Marian with sandals. Her leather ones had worn entirely out,
and she had tried fiber ones without much success; she had even tried
wooden ones.

Before that meat was half gone,--and they ate with true Indian
appetites,--Delbert had determined to go after pork. There was a
certain place on the farther end of the island where the pigs were
pretty apt to be found, especially in the heat of the day. It was back
from the shore, but low. In fact, it was a lagoon of water in the
rainy season and contained water till near the rains again. In one or
two places the fresh water oozed out all the year round. It was here
that the young hunter proposed to make his attack.

The boy’s idea was certainly novel. Good as his new bow and arrows
were, he did not really suppose he could kill a hog with them except
by accident. Perhaps a shot through the eye would be fatal,--he was
not sure,--but if one was merely wounded there was danger of the rest
showing fight, and--well, Delbert proposed to take no chances.

So where the big rocks, solid as the Island itself, overhung the bushes
and little pools below, he would establish himself. Here he would
be where the game could not get at him without making a détour of a
quarter of a mile or so, and, after he had cut some brush and piled it
properly, they could not see him either.

So with his hair rope he made a trap or snare across a much-used pig
path, the rope running up over a crude but strong pulley and being tied
about a good-sized cactus in the rocks above. With the butcher knife
lashed to the end of a good stout pole and several such implements by
his side he sat and waited patiently.

When it became pretty warm, the pigs assembled by the lagoon to drink
and wallow in the mud. Before so very long the Muggywah appeared,
with Jennie and Esther on board. They moored her out a little way and
waded in. Quietly they drove the herd up toward the rocks and bushes,
for, though not what could be called wild, the pigs would not permit a
close approach. Presently one of them poked his nose through Delbert’s
waiting noose, and Delbert fairly held his breath till he stepped on,
and then he gave a mighty jerk and began hauling in his rope over the
pulley. He had caught the porker just back of one front leg, and the
astonishment of that pig and his companions when he was thus lifted
bodily into the air was enough, Delbert afterward said, to pay him for
all his trouble.

From behind his screen of rocks and bushes he pulled the squealing
animal up till he could reach him with a sort of shepherd’s crook he
had provided himself with; whereupon he fastened the rope and pulled
the pig in out of sight of its companions and dispatched it.

At the first squeal the girls had retreated most hastily to the
Muggywah and pushed off, paddling back till they were well out of sight
of the herd of pigs, when they moored the craft again, this time to a
rock on shore, and, ascending the hill, circled round back till they
found Delbert cutting up the game.

[Illustration: DELBERT PULLED THE SQUEALING ANIMAL UP]

They did by it as they had done by the deer,--skinned it and carried
the meat home tied up in the skin slung over a pole. They had a stick
with a fork at one end, so each of the girls could take a fork, and
Delbert managed the other end.

After that Delbert had no more taste for potting small game. He spent
his time thinking up tricks and traps for deer and pigs. The deer were
not such easy marks, but the pigs, being more stupid or less shy, could
often be successfully bagged by practically the same tactics as he had
used the first time.

Finally Marian suggested to him that it would be in the long run a
great saving of time and an all-round better plan if he would build a
good little pen somewhere and catch rather small pigs and put them into
it, where they could fatten them up on garden stuff, of which they had
plenty now,--the inferior bananas, for instance,--and then they could
kill them when they chose. Jennie thought of a good place for a pen,
close to the watermelon-patch, where there was a scrubby tree or two
and a great overhanging rock that the pigs could go under for shade
and shelter, and where they would not have to build a fence except on
two sides.

The plan was put into operation and worked very well. They built the
fence mostly of rocks piled up into a wall, and when it was finished,
Delbert stocked it with youngsters that he was sure were quite old
enough to leave their mothers. And the catching of them and the
conveying of them across to the pen gave him much glee in spite of the
hard labor involved.

The pork when killed was cured with salt and smoke. Marian did not
have very good success with the last method, yet she managed it after
a fashion. First she tried smoking the meat by hanging it over their
chimney, but that was too hot, for it cooked it as well as smoking it
and fried out all the grease too. But she did better when she built a
smokehouse where a tiny fire discharged its smoke through a tunnel in a
bank that terminated in a little cubby-hole affair of sticks and rocks
where the meat was laid. They called it a smokehouse. It was a sort of
doll smokehouse. The meat was always cut in rather small pieces and
well salted, for Marian had a horror of spoilt meat.

Soap was also attempted,--staggered at, Marian said. She knew little
about it, but had seen Bobbie’s mother making it, and she happened to
know that ashes contained lye. The bottom of the wickerwork around the
good demijohn had worn clear through. Marian carefully broke it away
at the neck as well and took it off entirely. Then, tipping it upside
down, she had a basket forsooth. She lined the sides with green banana
leaves and filled it full of ashes.

She rigged it up where she could slip under it the old broken demijohn
they had found in the cove and had used so much, which would hold
about a gallon. Then she poured a little water on the ashes, and when
that soaked in, a little more, and kept it up till she had it dripping
through into the old demijohn below. Thus she leached out her lye. And
if it did not seem very strong, she could boil it down in the porcelain
kettle, which was the only thing she had that she dared use for that
purpose, though she could boil things and even try out her grease in
Mr. Cunningham’s pail.

When the lye was stout enough to suit her, she put it into the
two-quart glass jar or the bottles, and finally she started in with
the soap-making. Well, she made it, but don’t imagine it was nice
white, sweet-smelling soap, such as you can buy, for it certainly was
not. She made, first and last, a good many batches. Some of it would
harden, and some would not.

What did harden she cut into cakes and put on a shelf to dry, where it
would proceed to do so, shrinking itself up into the most absurd shapes
of about half its former size. And what would not harden, she put into
broken bottles or great shells or hollowed-out pieces of wood, but it
was nearly all black in color and smelled--oh, like nothing in the
world but very strong-smelling soap, but it would make a lather, after
a fashion, and would take out dirt and grease.




CHAPTER XI

WHEREWITHAL SHALL WE BE CLOTHED?


Marian’s grandmothers had known how to spin and weave, and as a little
girl she herself had seen the old wheels and looms of her ancestors
and had had their workings explained to her. But her childish mind had
understood little, and the intervening years had wiped out much of
that. Still, there remained a little, a wavering memory that she called
up now and caused to supplement her grown-up knowledge of how such
things must needs be worked out.

“I need two wheels, Delbert,” she said, “and a band to go from one to
the other as on mother’s sewing-machine. One wheel must be small, and I
think this spool will do. Jennie, you can wind off what’s left of the
thread on to this little stick instead. But where can I get the other
wheel? It must be big.”

“There’s the bottom of the old barrel,” suggested Delbert. “We can make
something else to put on the Muggywah to carry things in.”

“That’s so,” said Marian; “I could burn a hole through the center to
run an axle through and another one to stick a handle in near the edge
to turn it by.”

“But doesn’t the wheel have to have a groove on it? Mamma’s machine
wheel did,--grooved, you know, so the band couldn’t slip off.”

“No, if I remember rightly, the big wheel on grandma’s spinning-wheel
was very wide, or had a wide tire, and the band was so narrow there
was no danger of its getting off. There probably was a groove on the
little wheel, and our spool will fix that, you see, as well as if it
had been made specially; but I don’t see my way clear yet to making
that barrel-bottom carry the band. Maybe I can char the edge and make a
groove in it.”

Investigation proved the bottom of the barrel to be made of two pieces
which would come apart as soon as the pressure of the staves was
removed. That, however, was remedied by nailing two bits of boards
across the two pieces.

Where did she get the nails? Well, she had been saving them up for a
long time. Two of them had been in Davie’s apron pockets when they
came to the Island, and one had chanced to be lying in the bottom of
the lunch-basket. The others had been picked up one time and another in
bits of driftwood on the beaches. Most of these were too crooked and
rusty to be good for much, but there were enough good ones to fasten
the pieces of the barrel-bottom securely together. Then they knocked
off the hoops and staves and released the round piece, and burned the
center hole, and another near the rim to put a handle in to turn it by,
as Marian had said.

By this time she had abandoned the idea of charring the edge and
making a groove. She gathered a lot of little straight pieces about
five inches long and varying in width, some round but most little flat
pieces, and in the center of each she cut a V-shaped notch and pounded
them down tight on the edge of the wheel till she had circled it
entirely, in that manner, then tied two strings round near the ends of
the little sticks to bind them so they would not loosen up and come off.

She decided to use the same iron bar for an axle for the wheel to turn
on that she had used to burn the holes in it with, and she pounded it
into a crack in the rock wall of the wickiup. The outer end of the bar
had a sort of knob on it,--it might once have been a nut,--so that the
wheel would not slip off, and to keep it from wandering in the other
direction up to the wall she twisted a bit of rope round the bar and
tied it to make a good-sized knot on that side.

She was not quite satisfied with the rim of her wheel, and she worked
a long while, weaving and winding fiber in and out till she had it
all smooth with no chance of any of the little pieces being knocked
loose. For the rest of her apparatus she had to do some searching for
materials. She spent a full half-day up in the pasture before she
found what she had decided she must have,--a straight little tree that
divided into two branches about three feet up. She cut it close to the
ground and trimmed off the top, leaving the forks about six inches long.

A piece of driftwood flat on one side was taken for the base, and a
hole was burned in the middle of it and enlarged till the forked stick
could be inserted and made snug by driving in little pegs where it did
not fit tight. Two little holes were burned through the two forks. She
used a big old nail to do that, for she did not want such big holes as
the bar would have made,--besides, the bar was tight in the wall now
with the big wheel swung on it. A little round stick that fitted snug
into the spool was then made into a spindle. It turned nicely in the
two little burned holes in the forks.

[Illustration: THE SPINNING-WHEEL]

However, the standard was not heavy enough of itself to stand as firmly
as would be required, so one end of the driftwood base was slipped
under a rock projection, and then Delbert tugged in as big a rock as he
could lift and set it down on the other end.

Now all that was lacking was a band to connect the two wheels. Marian
crocheted this out of fiber, just wide enough to fit the spool.

Any of the children could turn the big wheel. Even Davie would be able
to when he got up. This left Marian’s hands free to manipulate her
cotton at the spindle.

Probably no spinning-wheel that was ever built was just like that one,
but that did not disturb Marian’s equanimity so long as her wheel would
spin, and that it certainly did. True, her yarn was always lumpy;
she never did get so she could make it nice and smooth, but she was
convinced that that was the fault of the manipulation of the cotton,
for the wheel itself went quite swiftly and smoothly.

After she had spun up all their cotton, which included that from the
wild cotton-tree, which she mixed in with that of the now flourishing
bushes in the garden, she got out the little bundle of the combings of
their hair, which she had saved ever since about the first of their
being on the island, and she finally got that all spun into yarn too.
It took as much time to prepare her material for spinning as it did
to spin it, but the children helped with the cotton. They all, Davie
included, got to be quite expert at picking out cotton seeds.

The next problem was weaving. Delbert was unexpectedly helpful at that.
He knew nothing of his grandmother’s loom, but once upon a time he had
seen a woman weaving a rag carpet, and on that never-to-be-forgotten
trip with Clarence and his father he had seen an old Indian weaving on
a loom.

As, however, the son of the old Indian had been blest with a number
of fighting cocks which he was very desirous of showing off to the
Americans, the small boy had bestowed most of his attention on the
pugnacious birds instead of on the sober and less interesting loom;
with the result that of the two processes that of rag-carpet weaving
was really the clearer in his mind, though it had been witnessed
earlier.

“There were two rollers,” he told Marian. “One had the threads and
one had the carpet, and there were two little frame things something
like in a beehive, only with strings across, and when one jerked up it
lifted up every other thread, and she’d throw the thing through and
then the other would jerk up and that lifted the other every other
thread, and she’d throw it back again and pound it down with a stick.”

Marian drew a long breath. “Delbert,” she said, “it sounds just like a
nightmare.”

Delbert stared. “Why,” he said, “I can see it just as plain as can be,
only I can’t remember how it was made.”

“Probably we couldn’t make one just like it, anyway,” she consoled him.

Indeed, after much cogitating, she decided that an actual loom was
beyond their resources, just at that time, at least, and concluded
to weave by the simple method followed by the Indians in weaving the
_fajas_,[6] or narrow sashes the men wear. They had seen this done by
an Indian woman at the Port.

  [6] Pronounced _fahʹhahss_.

This calls for two pairs of forks set in the ground and two round
sticks laid across the forks. The thread for the warp is wound round
these sticks, from one to the other, over both and then under both,
across and across, till the sticks are full.

A thin flat stick is then woven in under one thread and over the next
of the top layer of threads, and then turned up on edge. This makes
a space to pass the shuttle through, and the shuttle, by the way, is
simply a slender stick with the filling wound on it.

Then the flat stick is pulled out and woven in again and the process
repeated again and again. As fast as is needed, the round sticks are
turned over, thus turning the woven cloth underneath till all but a few
inches of the warp has been woven. These threads are then cut and form
the fringe on the ends of the _faja_.

Marian changed the plan a little. Two little crotches were set in the
floor of the wickiup just at the right height to be handy to work at.
They had to dig up the floor to get them set right, but when they were
set, the children smoothed things over and packed the seaweed carpet
down again.

A smooth round stick about as big as Marian’s wrist was laid across
the crotches. The other roller was much smaller around, and instead of
being put on a pair of crotches was fastened to the side of the house
with loops of rope, being just loose enough to turn easily in the
loops.

Then came the task of wrapping the warp round the two rollers. It had
to be very even and snug, and every once in a while a thread would
break and have to be tied, and altogether it called for a good deal of
patience.

[Illustration: THE LOOM]

“I remember,” said Delbert, “that on the carpet the lady wove, this
part was all red and green. She had a wide stripe of red in the middle
and a wide stripe of green out a little way from it on both sides, and
in between were narrow stripes, but, on the very outside, on each
edge, there was a stripe of red just half as wide as the one in the
center, and she explained it to me. She said it was so that when the
carpet was all sewed together it would make a red stripe just the same
size as the one in the middle. The rags that she put in the other way
were all kinds of colors.”

“How came you to remember all that?” asked Jennie.

“Dunno, but I do.”

When the warp was all ready, Marian tried weaving in the cross-thread
with her darning-needle, as she would have mended a sock; but that was
altogether too long and tedious a process, so she hunted for a thin
flat stick such as the Indians have, to weave in and turn up on edge to
hold the threads apart, while she slipped through a shuttle which she
made of a weed stalk. That did better, but was not wholly satisfactory,
and Delbert kept thinking and thinking, trying to remember how that
part of the work had been done on the carpet-loom. He could not get it
entirely clear in his head, but he finally evolved a plan that answered
the purpose.

He arranged a pair of harnesses--though neither he nor Marian knew that
that was their name--of two sticks wound with thread that looped down
round the threads of the warp. These harnesses were connected by a rope
that ran over a spool pulley that he fixed in the roof. Marian pulled
this rope a little; and that lifted one of the harnesses and with it
every other thread of the warp; she thrust through her weed-stalk
shuttle, then pulled that harness down, which released the upheld
threads, at the same time lifting the harness and with it all the other
threads.

With this device she could accomplish two or three times as much in the
same space of time, and she was not at all niggardly in her praise.
Delbert glowed in consequence and, of course, Esther glowed with him.
Even Jennie, who was most apt to be a little skeptical of Delbert’s
abilities, had nothing but the most respectful remarks to offer on the
subject.

With this crude loom they could weave a piece of cloth about a foot
wide by six feet long, and the children were all so interested and
eager to work at it, and it was such a simple process, that they all
easily learned; so Marian did not have all the weaving to do.

Marian had kept Davie’s leg bandaged till she was very sure that it
must be well knit together, and then she would not have him bear his
weight on it for almost a week after. She was so very ignorant as to
how such things should be attended to that she simply did not know what
might happen. So she would undo it every day and bathe and rub and work
with it and then do it up again, leaving it more and more loose and
finally gave him permission to walk on it a little, but even then she
kept the splints on it and provided him with a sort of a crutch.

When at last she discarded all bindings and allowed him to go free,
they watched him most jealously. There was a queer little half-limp
that Marian saw immediately. She hoped it would pass off in a week or
so, and it did get better, but it never entirely disappeared. In spite
of all her care, something had not been just right, and little King
David never walked quite straight again.

Marion felt much worse about it than he did. As long as he could walk
and run and swim, what did he care if one leg was a trifle shorter
than the other? He could roam the Island wilds with the rest of them
now, and that was joy enough.

Marian hoped his experience would teach him wisdom, and she did her
best to impress it upon his mind that when she was not there Delbert’s
authority came next; that, as Delbert was the oldest, it was his duty
to take care of the younger ones, and they must obey him.

Davie admitted that he had not really needed to look for _panales_,
that he could plainly see he would have saved himself a great deal of
pain and trouble if he had minded Delbert, and he even went so far
as to say of his own accord that he wished he had. Also, at Marian’s
request, he promised to be “more good” in the future.

This was all she could hope for in that direction, and she took pains
to instruct Delbert, when the others were not present, that, while she
fully intended to back up his authority, at the same time he must take
care not to issue orders that were not really necessary. She did not
worry about his having trouble with the girls, for Esther would think
anything Delbert wanted was the thing to do, anyway, and Jennie was
growing into such a sensible little woman that her judgment could be
depended upon as well as Delbert’s own; but Delbert was to take care
that he came pretty near letting Davie have his own way in the minor,
unimportant things and only issue orders to him when there was some
reason for it.

She also privately instructed the little girls to use their influence
whenever they could to keep Davie within bounds and see that he gave
Delbert as little trouble as possible. And there she had to leave the
matter, trusting for the best, for she could not always go with them
now, the spinning and weaving and the making of their clothes took
up so much of her time. The children would go off of a morning and
sometimes not be back till nearly noon, coming in laden with fish, or
maybe clams, or with great armloads of wood.

While they were gone, Marian would clean up the wickiup and work a
while among the great mass of poppies and nasturtiums she had growing
about the house and paths; but the wheel and loom were the principal
things. She spun her cotton and hair-combings as fine as she could, so
as to make them go as far as possible, and then she was always looking
for new material. She learned to work in a great deal of fiber without
spinning, especially in the filling, and many and many a morning was
spent in cleaning out banana fiber to be used in her cloth. Oh, there
was always plenty to keep her busy till the children came back at
noon. They would be hungry, and there would be dinner to eat, and then
lessons, and afterwards they would help with whatever she had in hand.

And for the lessons she took up another labor, that of making books
of rabbit-skins. She had Delbert bring her some new skins, and she
used part of the old skin clothes, which had been promptly discarded
as fast as she had made new ones. She would trim her pages to the
desired size and sew them together with fiber or hair. She used her
little buttonhole scissors for the cutting, and of course she had real
needles, though she thought that she could have made shift with thorns
if she had had to. Her ink was brown.

Her pens were made of quills, and she could not write very nicely
with them. Fine lines and graceful curves were not easy to achieve
with them, so she discarded script and “printed” her books, as little
children do before they have learned to write.

I think in time she would have worked out a printing-press to print her
books on. Indeed, she did take the first step; she began to make type.
It began accidentally almost. A pen had gone bad, and in fixing it her
knife slipped and spoiled it altogether. Then, her mind on something
else, she began toying with it idly and presently cut it square across
and, pressing it down on her wrist, noted the neat _o_ it printed
there. Then it struck her that if it were inked it would make a better
_o_ than she could with a pen. She tried it, and it worked.

A second quill cut across and a section taken out made a _c_. It gave
her an idea. Why not make a lot of type? It could not all be made with
quills, but it would be amusing to see what she could do. She whittled
out from bits of wood a capital _A_, and a _W_, and a _D_. She needed
an ink-pad, and made it by padding a chip with cotton and then covering
it with one of her last scraps of lawn.

Her type worked well enough, but it would be too much bother to whittle
out the whole alphabet. The little letters would be beyond her skill,
anyway, and it would be slower printing one type at a time than it was
writing them. But by that time she had thought of a way whereby she
might make a few types serve for the whole alphabet, as all letters are
composed of curves and straight lines.

The curves she could make of quills, which were finer than anything
she could whittle out, and the straight lines she made on the end of a
little bone, two of them,--one for long lines, one for short ones. Four
quills properly cut furnished her with an assortment of curves, and
she could hold all six in her left hand between the first and middle
fingers, which was better than laying them down and picking them up
each time she wished to change. It was too much bother to change with
every letter, too, so she would take one and make all she wanted of
that kind clear across the page, then she would change and make all
of another kind, and so on. She soon learned to gauge her distances
properly.

It was no quicker than writing, but she could put her lines closer
together, thus getting more on a page, and her letters were more
uniform, and there were no more blots. It used the ink up faster than
plain writing, for it dried out from the pad, but, as it chanced, there
were plenty of ink materials.

The children were delighted; it was easier to read than the old-time
script, and it looked so neat and businesslike.

In those soft skin books Marian put every poem or set of verses that
she could remember. She began with Mother Goose rhymes and graded on up
to “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and “Thanatopsis,” which she had
learned to speak at school. Into one book went Bible verses and several
whole chapters from the holy book, notably the twenty-third Psalm and
the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians.

Anything and everything pleased the children. They learned to read
everything and to repeat a great deal by heart. Esther especially was a
perfect little parrot and could reel off all kinds of lofty sentiment
of the meaning of which she had no conception. Jennie and Delbert
always had to study longer on a thing, and Davie, where lessons were
concerned, was a little lazybones. Davie never learned anything that he
did not have to, and Marian had such a time getting the fundamentals
well rooted in his memory that she never tried to plant anything there
that was not necessary. He was as quick and keen as any of them in
other things, though, and it filled Marian’s heart with pride to see
how fearless he was in the water and how little he was behind the
others in that element.

As fast as she could, Marian replaced the rabbit-skin clothes with the
newer, better ones, but the style of making was the same,--low-necked,
sleeveless dresses with rather scant, short skirts, for material was
scarce. Delbert still clung to his “loin-cloth,” and Marian was more
than willing, it was so much simpler than trousers. Even David, for the
sake of wearing some of the product of their combined labor, consented
to be clothed like Delbert, and as he found a loin-cloth did not impede
his actions in any way, he continued to sport one from then on. There
was one thing in favor of the new clothes: they certainly wore well;
there was no shoddy in them.

Gradually Jennie spent more and more time at the wickiup. For one
thing, the children did not like to go off and leave Marian alone
all the morning, and as Davie was growing so big that he could help
appreciably, there was really no need for so many of them on the
morning excursions.

So Jennie stayed with Marian. Her particular forte was making baskets.
Jennie could make beautiful baskets. She wove them of straws and tough
weeds and palm-leaf. Her only teachers were her memories of certain
kindergarten lessons, the big basket they had brought their lunch in,
and a rather blurry picture down in one corner of the old newspaper
of a half-dozen Indian baskets with strange designs. For the rest she
taught herself, and when she once got interested in the work she wanted
to do nothing else.

It was Jennie who made a basket of split palm-leaves to take the place
of the old barrel on the Muggywah. She would sit for hours on the
seaweed carpet of the wickiup, leaning against the pile of bedding,
and weave and weave, the work growing much faster under her slim brown
fingers than it did under Marian’s. Indeed, after Jennie took to making
baskets, Marian and the rest quit. What was the use of their wasting
their time when Jennie could do it so much better and quicker?

She made big baskets to carry wood and clams in; she made little ones
to hang up in the wickiup to drop little pieces of moss and seashells
into. She loved the little ones best. She made them in patterns. She
colored some of her material a dull red with juice from the cactus
fruit and some of it brown with Marian’s ink. She used some kinds of
seaweed, and she made one basket with a row of starfish around the edge
and over the handle, and she made some with lids. When Marian’s hat
wore out, Jennie made her a new one, weaving it as she did her baskets
and trimming it with sprays of seaweed and shells.

The ordinary rains did not inconvenience them, but when they were very
severe the wickiup leaked a little down the rock wall. They had not
been able to make the roof perfectly tight there, and the water, when
the wind blew hard, would find its way down; then they would have to
remove whatever was hanging or leaning against that side, and Marian
would turn back the seaweed carpet so that it should not get wet, and
the water would run down the wall and soak into the sand and rocks of
the floor. They enjoyed the big rains, though. They could always keep
warm and dry, and the wickiup was big enough to allow each one to move
about a little and follow whatever occupation he or she chose.

It was on a rainy day that Marian conceived the idea of weaving up the
old rags that had been their clothes into new cloth, though the task
was not finished on that one day by any means, nor in two. She had used
up everything she had on hand in the way of thread; so she made the
warp out of new hair clipped from her own and the children’s heads with
the buttonhole scissors; and with the same sharp little instrument she
cut the old rags into strips, as narrow as she could and have them hold
together at all, and wove them in as rag carpets are woven; and lo! she
had new towels, and they needed new towels very much.

So time passed, rainy season and cold weather and rainy season again.
Often at night they built brush fires out on the rocks where they could
be seen a long way off. Their signal flag had been blown down one
stormy night and lost altogether.

Sometimes, far out, they saw canoes and started out in the Muggywah to
intercept them, but the canoes always went on their way too fast and
too far to be overtaken.

[Illustration: IT SEEMED AS IF THEY MUST SURELY HAVE SEEN OR HEARD HER]

Once, when the children were gone in the Muggywah after eggs, Marian
sighted a canoe and started to swim out to it with only a piece of
driftwood to help keep her afloat. She got so close to them that it
seemed as if they must surely have seen or heard her, but they put up
their sail, and, despairing, she had to see them depart. Giving up the
chase, she rested a little before battling her way slowly back, but
she arrived so tired that she could scarcely drag herself out of the
water and across the beach, to find the children returned and hunting
desperately for her.

Then one day they hauled the Muggywah up on the beach for repairs. Two
of the sticks driven through the burnt holes had broken, and they were
going to put in new ones. They took it apart and rolled the logs up
beyond the soft sand into the shade of a mesquite tree that grew at the
foot of the hill.

The next day they found the material they had got was not so good
as they had thought it was, and so they spent the day hunting for
something better. And that night came the second big storm.




CHAPTER XII

DISASTER AND A NEW TASK


The storm was fully as severe as the one that had welcomed the children
to the Island, though they did not realize what they were in for till
midnight. When it began to blow so strong that they were really sure a
storm was coming, Delbert took their best ropes and securely moored the
logs of the Muggywah to the tree, thinking it barely possible that the
waves might reach up to them if the wind kept on increasing. And such a
terrible wind as it threatened to be!

They turned the little burros loose with their mothers,--there were
four of them that year,--and the one little pig that they happened to
have in the pen was also turned out to seek its shelter where it chose.
The little girls tried to get it into the wickiup, but it was wild and
escaped them, and Marian told them to let it go, that it would take
care of itself.

They gathered in the best of the melons, for there was no knowing if
there would be one left by morning, the sandy point was so low; and
they piled up a great stack of wood and _pitalla_ by the fireplace; and
then it was too dark to do any more.

The wind howled and the waves broke on the beach like mighty thunders.
The thatch of their roof struggled to be gone, and the water poured
down the wall in a steady sheet. Fortunately, it could soak through
the sand and rocks of the floor and run off down the hill as fast as
it came in; otherwise they would have been flooded. The window and the
storm doors were tied as tightly as possible, and Marian watched them
closely and thanked her stars that she had insisted on taking such
endless pains to have everything about the house solid and sure.

Of course, they were protected somewhat by the cliff, and the girl
shuddered to think what would have happened had they not been. She
imagined how it would seem to go crawling through the fury of the
storm, holding to one another’s hands, beaten to the ground and half
drowned, and finally reaching the old Cave, the only possible other
shelter, and crawling in, soaked and chilled, to lie, packed like
sardines in a box, till morning.

It was not a pleasant picture; she was glad to come back to the
reality,--the interior of the wickiup, somewhat disorderly with so
much wood and everything piled away from the rock wall, but warm and
dry and safe; Delbert stretched out by the fireplace, a great strong
boy, his eyes, steady and straightforward, regarding the flames as they
spluttered in protest against the water that found its way down the
chimney; Davie sprawling at her feet, sleeping in utter carelessness of
the storm, well knowing that whatever happened he would be taken care
of; the two girls on a blanket beyond him, awake, and Jennie a little
nervous but Esther calmly confident that everything would turn out all
right,--that they were, and would continue to be, safe.

Marian’s throat swelled a little as she watched them. How dear they
were, every one, and so big and strong now, even Davie! Surely now,
when this storm was over and the Muggywah repaired, they might start
back to the Port. The first few miles outside the shelter of the bay
would be the worst. The waves were always very big and high out there,
but after that,--well, they might not make very good time, but what
mattered it if they were a week on the way, so they got there at last?
They could take food and water with them, though for that matter they
could go hungry and thirsty if need be; what mattered it so they got
home?

All that night the wind tore at them; all the next day it screamed
about their ears, and the breakers on the beach were like great guns
of a battle. The next night it calmed down, and the next morning they
sallied forth to take account of the damage done.

They found a considerable amount of damage,--the felling of many banana
plants, half the patch in fact, the complete disappearance of every
melon vine on the point, every plant in the garden beaten into the
ground, the little pig gone, and their carefully gathered woodpile
scattered to the four winds. But all this sank into insignificance
beside the fact that not one log of the Muggywah was left to them. The
tree had been uprooted and washed away bodily, and all search up and
down the beaches revealed no trace of it. The great storm had cast many
treasures at their feet, but they were so dispirited over their losses
that they could not be very joyful over the gains.

Mechanically they lugged the wood up out of reach of the waves, which
were still pounding angrily, gathered in a number of new bottles, and
took note of the great masses of seaweed that would make fresh carpet
when it was dry. But with all the wood there was no log like those of
the lost Muggywah, and with all their gazing to sea they could not see
anything that might of a bare possibility be an uprooted tree.

They fashioned a poor sort of a raft out of the best pieces of the
driftwood, and with its aid explored the outer reefs and _esteros_
and even as far as the egg islands. The raft was clumsy and slow and
generally unmanageable, and Delbert said that it made him sick just
to look at it, but they wanted to go longer distances than they could
swim, and the float was made to serve.

At the end of about two weeks, however, Delbert said: “It’s no use,
Marian. We are only wasting time. The Muggywah simply did not lodge
anywhere near us. Maybe it didn’t lodge at all; it may be going yet, in
three different directions, and our best ropes with it.”

“Yes, more’s the pity, Delbert. I hate losing your hair rope about as
bad as losing the Muggywah herself.”

“Well,”--and the boy’s jaw set solid and square,--“there’s not a bit
more use crying over a lost boat than there is in crying over spilt
milk. We can’t find it, and we haven’t got a stick of timber fit to
put into a new one either. We can’t walk back to the Port; it would be
hundreds of miles to follow the coast line, and we should be sure to
get lost if we tried any short cuts. If Davie was a couple of years
older, I’d say to risk it. But we aren’t going to wait two more years.
I want to see mother.” His voice broke a little, but he conquered it
and went on. “There is only one thing to do; it has been in my head
kind of hazy for some time, but now I’ve got it clear; we must fix the
old canoe, Marian.”

“How?” asked Marian quietly, for she had never been able to think of
any way to do that.

“Well, we must put a framework in the side that is gone, the hole, you
know. I’m not sure yet just what is the best material, but I think
palm-leaf stems would be,--we can burn holes through the canoe to
fasten to,--a solid framework, that will not break and give way at any
little tap, and as near the shape of the other side as we can make it.
Then we’ll weave in basketwork, strong as we can, and, as we go, pack
all the cracks full of fiber and _pitalla_ tar. I’ve got it all studied
out, Marian. We’ll weave the basketwork double with a space between,
and in that space we can put stones, just enough to make that side of
the canoe as heavy as the other. We’ll mix the fiber and tar together
and pound it down as we go along, and when it’s all finished, if there
come any cracks, we can fill them in with cotton and tar, and if we
can’t jam it in tight enough so but what it still leaks some, why, one
of us can bail all the time.”

“Do you know how to make _pitalla_ tar?”

Delbert threw up his head.

“Yes, I do! That is _one_ thing I saw made that I paid enough attention
to to know how it was done. Bobbie’s Uncle Jim used to try it out.
Don’t you remember? He had a place fixed down by the old blacksmith
shop, and we kids were always fooling around there, and he showed and
explained all about it to us.”

“And for a wonder you listened?” asked Jennie.

“For a wonder I listened,” he answered, smiling grimly.

“Good boy!” said Marian. “From now on we bend our energies to the
canoe. When it is done, we won’t wait for anything more,--once we can
sail it,--we won’t wait for anything more except a still day. The first
still day we’ll start for home.”

Delbert had a great time making a retort to extract his tar. He found a
place near High-Tide Pool where there was a hole in the rock which he
could utilize, and he built it up with stones and earth till it suited
him.

Then they began gathering the _pitalla_. They had gathered everything
near them for the fireplace, but they knew where there was plenty more
to be had, so they went after it,--up the _estero_, past the tide-flats
toward the lagoon. There they could gather it, pile it high on the
clumsy raft, and float it home as they had brought the thatch-grass.
It was slow work, but there was no other way. It was not so easy to
get down to the _estero_ as the grass had been, for the _pitalla_ is
thorny indeed, but they managed it somehow, because they had to. They
could gather a good deal on the shores nearer home, but nowhere was
there such an abundance as beyond that particular _estero_.

They decided, however, never to leave the home Island alone. They had
seen several canoes since the storm, and they hoped one might come into
San Moros and near enough to be signaled. Delbert and the girls were
perfectly capable of gathering the _pitalla_ and bringing it home; so
Marian and Davie stayed at home to do the work there and watch the bay
for canoes.

Marian put in a little garden, for they could not tell how long it
might take them to finish the canoe, and she planted part of the
melon-patch over again, thinking that what they did not reap perhaps
some one else would. She straightened up the bananas and mended the
fence where they had dragged the old canoe out of it.

As soon as they had got quite a little pile of _pitalla_, they began to
burn it in the retort, and some one had to watch that and attend to it.
Delbert was sure that he lost a great deal of tar because his retort
was so crude. He was sure Bobbie’s Uncle Jim got much more out of a
pile of _pitalla_ than he did, but he had to manage as best he could.
And the tar did come; it trickled down into the little dishpan slowly
but surely, and Delbert, impatient though he was, would set his face
toward the _estero_ and bring more _pitalla_.

Every morning the three were in such a hurry to get off that they did
not stop for a hot breakfast, and they took only a light lunch with
them for noon, but Marian always had a good hot meal ready for them
upon their return. The destruction of the garden was a drawback, for
the little new one was not of service yet. Still, not all the plants
had been destroyed by the storm; some had been rescued, straightened
up, washed, and tied to stakes, and were pursuing the even tenor of
their way again, and, of course, the turnips and carrots that had
already attained their growth were as good as ever, and the newly
planted seeds would soon be making quite a showing.

Twice since the storm Delbert had killed a deer, and the meat was not
allowed to spoil. What could not be cooked immediately was salted and
dried, some of it smoked, and all was watched carefully to thwart the
flies. When the raft came back at night it would bring game of some
kind,--a rabbit killed in the brush of the shore or a fish speared
on the way down the _estero_. These would be put into the kettle
and left simmering over the coals till morning, or wrapped in green
banana leaves and buried in the hot coals, to be raked out hastily for
breakfast; and of the remnants Marian would make a stew to have piping
hot for supper, flanked by a dish of greens which she and Davie had
picked.

As they ran across them, the children brought in other things that they
needed,--tough sticks, or mescal plants to make ropes of,--and Davie
was always waiting for them on the pier to see what the particular
booty of the day was and to carry it up to the wickiup to show Marian.
And Marian always had warm water ready for them, and when they had
washed off the day’s accumulation of dirt and combed the tangled hair
and braided it anew,--they did not stop for that in the morning,--they
would sit down and eat; and they always ate all Marian had prepared for
them, too, and then filled up on bananas and chattered and chattered
like a flock of birds all the time. Then they would go down and unload
the _pitalla_ and carry it over to the retort, and by that time they
were ready to settle down in the wickiup in front of the _pitalla_ fire
for a rest.

There would be a very short session of school then, a little reading
from the rabbit-skin book, a review of the multiplication or division
tables, and a spelling-lesson. It was not much; Marian had got them
about as far as she could without books, and it did not seem as if
it mattered so much, now that the home-going was, as you might say,
in sight. They always sang in the evenings. Their mother had come of
a musical family, and Marian had taught them all the songs she knew,
and there was not one of them that could not sing sweet and clear and
strong. Marian gloried in their voices and knew that her mother would
too.

And she always had to tell them a story after lessons were over. They
said that was Marian’s lesson. She had become quite expert at it.
Usually it was a rehashing of some dimly remembered thing that she
had read, but sometimes it was a pure product of her imagination. If
it was an Indian story, why, so much the better, for the tribe never
forgot that it _was_ a tribe, though sometimes the Indian names and
pretenses would be dropped for several weeks, only to be taken up with
renewed vigor later.

When Marian thought that it was long enough since they had eaten, and
about bedtime,--her watch had stopped the year before,--they would go
down to the water and have their swim. Sometimes the water was pretty
cold, but they were so used to it that they did not stop for that any
more. Once in a while Davie was left asleep at the wickiup, but as a
rule he went with them.

They would take the raft away out from shore and have oceans of fun
plunging from it, diving, swimming races, floating, in short doing
everything that could be done in the water.

A favorite game was “rescue.” One of them would fall overboard with
a yell of “Oh, save me!” and then do as little as possible to help
himself, while another one would dive in after him and those on the
raft would paddle it off a little, so as to give the gallant rescuer
scope for his or her endeavors. They got so that there was not one of
them--except Davie--who could not take care of himself and one other
in the water, and even Davie could make a very respectable stagger at
it.

Delbert and Esther were the best swimmers; they could do the most
difficult stunts. In a straight swim, though, Marian would outlast
Esther, while Jennie fell considerably behind her.

Moonlight nights were best for this play. Marian, her paddle in hand,
watched them with exultation in her heart, they were so strong and
full of grace; and they were hers,--she had thought, studied, prayed,
watched, and worked for them. Once she had read a novel whose hero had
been described as being “straight and handsome as a young god.” That
was the phrase that always came into her mind out there on the raft as
she watched Delbert,--“straight and handsome as a young god,”--but she
never said it aloud.

And Jennie,--puny, sickly little Jennie, always the least pretty of
them all,--how slim and lovely she stood in the moonlight, her hair
in two dripping braids, her eyes like shining stars! It fairly took
Marian’s breath away sometimes to realize what a winsome beauty was
growing to be Jennie’s. She had always expected Esther to be pretty,
but that Jennie should blossom out like this!

Sometimes the water was full of phosphorescence. This was, of course,
more noticeable on dark nights, and then every move they made was a
pale blaze. That was better than moonlight; it was magic; it was a
fairyland made real. Then they quit playing they were Indians and
played they were mermaids and sea-goblins of the deep. The raft was
a Spanish galleon wrecked in ages past and drifting still, filled
with treasure. Just see how the jewels gleamed! Or it was a great sea
turtle, ridden by sea nymphs, plunging and careering, unable to throw
off its tormentors. Then it was foam of the waves, unsubstantial and
formless, and the fish that came scurrying by in silver flashes were
chased in glee.

It was always hard to coax them back to land on these nights, but
sooner or later they had to go, and they would then huddle about the
fire a little, drying their hair, before they lay down to sleep soundly
till morning. Then early the three would be up and off, generally
taking their breakfast with them to eat on the way up the _estero_,
while Marian and Davie took up their daily tasks.

Davie found it a little lonesome with Delbert and the girls gone all
day, but he was such a sunny-tempered little chap that he managed
pretty well after all. There were his lessons, which went much faster
and smoother than they had done at first, and then he helped Marian do
everything, even cook. And he made little boats and sailed them, and
he rode on Jackie, who was growing very steady and sedate this year,
and he gathered in wood and crabs. Always he watched for little shells
and other treasures of the sea, to bring to Marian for her inspection,
as she sat weaving or writing in the rabbit-skin books. It was at this
time that she wrote out “Thanatopsis,” all but six lines that she could
not for the life of her remember.

She kept her subconscious mind on the retort and went out every so
often to attend to it, for all things now were subordinate to the
tarring of that canoe. When the little dishpan was full of _pitalla_
tar and they had a nice big pile of _pitalla_ on hand, they decided to
begin on the work. So they dragged the canoe into the water at the
pier and paddled it round to the other side of the Island and dragged
it up high on the beach not far from the tar retort. Then they began
the main task to which all these weeks had been preparatory.

Marian left the housework and cooking to the girls; they could spear
the fish and gather the greens and cook them, they could boil down
the salt water and take it out on the raft to the reef and bring
back the dry salt, and they could watch the dry meat and gather the
bananas. The older sister and Delbert devoted their time to the canoe.
There were holes to be burned and the toughest and strongest of pegs
to be whittled and driven in; there was much testing of materials,
much discussion of ways and means, much sighting and squinting and
balancing. This work must be done right.

Slowly the framework grew. The basket work would be made entirely of
the split palm stems, or, if there were not enough of them, they would
put the next best thing on the top.

They tipped the old canoe into the best position to work on and propped
it up with stakes and stones. And when the framework was finished,
they called in Jennie for her opinion on the next step. So she worked
too, for none of them could weave so well--so neatly and tightly--as
she. And as she wove, Marian and Delbert began packing in the tarred
fiber. It took a lot of it, but Delbert thought that, if they ran out
entirely, they could, perhaps, use some kinds of seaweed at the top
where it would not matter so much.

Egging-time came and went. They stopped work long enough to go for eggs
once, and then Davie and the girls went alone, or Davie and Esther,
while the three older ones worked steadily on the canoe.

They had it about two-thirds done and were shifting it into a different
position one day and propping it up, when Esther and Davie came running
down the hill laughing. They had been off in the pasture. As soon as
she got within calling distance Esther began to shout, “Davie’s found a
_panal_! Davie’s found a _panal_!”

“Don’t believe it,” said Delbert shortly.

“Have,” declared Davie, coming up with a grin reaching from one ear
round to the other. “Have, too. ’S whopper. Heap big chief me. Find
whopper _panal_. All the tribe eat.”

Marian smiled indulgently. “Great brave, Hiawatha! Where did you find
it? Where Pocahontas had just pointed it out to you?”

“No,” with great scorn; “I saw it myself. _I_ pointed it out to _her_.”

“Is that so, Pocahontas?” asked Marian, still smiling.

“Yes, it is,” declared Esther; “and it is a big one, bigger than we
ever had before, and we have been by it lots of times and none of us
ever saw it before. Come on, Marian, let’s have it for supper. We
haven’t had one for a year.”

“I guess we haven’t,” agreed Marian. “Somehow _panales_ are not very
plenty. What do you say, Delbert? Shall we knock off work and take in
this newly discovered and most marvelously large _panal_?”

“All right,” said Delbert, throwing down his stake. “Let me fix the
retort first.”

So they all trooped off and were soon _en route_ to the pasture. It was
a big _panal_, and it was so near to the path that it was a thousand
wonders that they had never seen it before, with all those little
workers flying back and forth. But then it was a long way from the
wickiup, and they had been so busy with the canoe lately that they had
not been much in the pasture; and probably it had grown pretty fast and
a few weeks earlier would not have shown much.

At any rate, they took their toll of the little workers now, taking
care to leave enough of the center for them to build on again and going
off with their booty in the kettle and pail well covered. They had not
gone far when they came upon the deer, and, of course, Delbert must
try for a shot. He could have got one, a little fawn, but his heart
forbade. It was such a dainty little darling that he wouldn’t have
minded catching it alive, but as long as there was other food he would
not kill it.

It was past noon as they wended their way back. Those who were not
carrying honey gathered up wood. Davie was ahead. As they came out by
the rock where the path wound smoothly down to the pier, Davie stopped
suddenly and let his wood fall to his feet.

“Look!” he said excitedly. “What’s that? Is that a canoe by the pier?”

They all looked.

“Canoe!” said Delbert in a queer, quiet voice. “That’s the launch.”




CHAPTER XIII

HOW THE LAUNCH CAME BACK TO SMUGGLERS’


When the Hadleys had left Mexico they had turned their steps toward
California. They had some friends there, but the place they finally
bought was not near any of them. It was many miles inland, too, for
Mrs. Hadley had said she did not want to live by the ocean.

“All my life I have been fond of it,” she said, “but now I don’t want
ever to have to see it again.”

So they had settled down on a little fruit farm in the interior.

They are not cheap, those little fruit farms of California. The price
asked per acre is usually enough to make your head swim till you get
used to it, and the Hadleys were not rich, which explains the fact that
every cent they had in the world was not enough to pay for that farm.
But they paid over what they had and set out to raise the rest from the
farm itself. In a few years they had succeeded.

Neither of them was old yet; they could still work, and did work. But
Mrs. Hadley’s face was quieter than it had been in former years, though
she went about patient and cheerful, a busy, kindly woman much beloved
by her neighbors.

Mr. Hadley was older than his wife by a number of years. He was
beginning to turn gray when their sorrow came to them, and his hair
whitened rapidly after that, and somehow he did not seem so tall as
he had been; but, aside from that, one would not have seen any great
change in him.

They made a fair living, nothing more, out of the farm. Sometimes
there is drought, you know, or there is failure of crops for some
other reason, or the crop is too large and then prices go down, and
transportation takes most of the profits in any case. And because of
all these things the Hadleys had been in California over six years
before they felt free to take a little visiting-trip among their
friends who lived in the State.

They had to plan most carefully then to keep within the limits of their
very modest income, for already there loomed on the horizon of the
future the expenses of the coming season. But they went and had a good
time, being heartily welcomed everywhere, and nowhere more heartily
than at the Harrises’, the last place on their list. The Harrises had
been old neighbors at the Port, being in fact none other than the
family who numbered among its members the Clarence to whom the Island
Hawks felt that they owed so much.

Clarence was not a boy now; he was a man grown, but he still lived at
home and helped his father run a fruit ranch of about four times the
size of that of the Hadleys. A man grown he was, but in many respects
the same boy, as was proved by the way his widowed sister’s children
trailed at his heels all day.

The Hadleys arrived in the evening, and it was not till the next day
at noon that the conversation turned upon their loss at the Port. The
Harrises had heard about the happening at the time, for Mrs. Harris
corresponded with Bobbie’s mother, and they had received, too, several
newspapers containing reports of the occurrence, these having been
marked and sent out by Mr. Cunningham to various persons to whom he
knew the event would be of interest. But there were, of course, details
that they had never heard, and it was only natural that they should ask
for the story and that Mr. Hadley should tell it over as they sat about
the table after the main part of the meal had been eaten.

Clarence was sitting between his lively little niece and nephew,
cracking walnuts for them, picking the meats out into their eager
little hands, and making little boats and turtles of the shells. The
little boy had slipped down and brought him the mucilage-bottle, a
piece of stiff paper, and his grandmother’s best shears, purloined from
her basket with many sideways glances.

Mr. Hadley told the tale quietly. They were undemonstrative people, and
after these years they could talk of this quite without emotion. He
told it all,--all the little incidents,--how Esther had been sent for
the forgotten bathing-suits the evening before; how Marian had started
out without sufficient wraps and Bobbie’s mother had made her take her
big cape; of the question Mr. Faston put to them as they were going
down to the pier and Delbert’s answer. Of the long search and nothing
to pay for it save the little handkerchief beaten into the sand. The
others asked a question now and then during the recital, but Clarence
sat silent, letting no word of the story escape him, but making no
comments as he worked quietly on the little shell boats.

When Mr. Hadley finished, he laid his shipbuilding tools down by his
shell-littered plate, and, looking into the white-haired father’s eyes,
spoke.

“Mr. Hadley,” he said, “Smugglers’ Island was not within fifty miles of
the Rosalie Group.”

       *       *       *       *       *

In one of the busy seaport towns of our Pacific Coast Mr. Hadley sat
at a little restaurant table, eating an inexpensive meal alone. Every
cent that he and his wife possessed in the wide world had gone into
that little fruit farm up in the hills, and now by means of a mortgage
on it he had raised money enough to carry him back to the coast to take
up the old heart-breaking task. His passage was already engaged on a
steamer to sail for the Port the next day. Mrs. Hadley remained on the
farm to carry on the work there as best she could alone.

If this were a model story, Clarence would most assuredly have gone
with his old neighbor, but in real life people do not start on journeys
unless they have the railroad or steamship fare, which Clarence did not
have. It takes money to travel, and ordinary people cannot get money
so easily that they can afford to spend it on anything that is not
strictly necessary. Certainly Clarence wanted badly enough to go and
show the way to Smugglers’ and search for his old playmates, but the
best he could actually do was to make a map of the coast and San Moros
as well as he could remember it, and give it to Mr. Hadley, with the
name of the old Indian who had told him about Smugglers’ in the first
place, but who, doubtless, had slept with his fathers for years now.

What did Mr. Hadley expect to find on Smugglers’? Certainly not his
living children, for had they lived through the storm, even though the
launch were disabled or destroyed, Pearson would have found some way
to get back. No; it was only a confirmation of death which the father
looked for at best, something to show where and how his children had
perished,--some fragment of the launch, perhaps, all but buried in the
sand.

As he sat eating, there came slowly into his consciousness a face at a
table near him. He looked at it. Surely it had not been there when he
came in. Whose was it? Why did it seem to claim his attention more than
the dozen others on all sides? He tried to resume his meal, but--who
was that man? where had he seen that face before?

In a blinding flash it came to him. It was Pearson! Pearson, the man
whom Cunningham had sent with Marian and the children in the launch.
But, of course, that could not be. Pearson was dead,--dead these nearly
seven years ago,--but this fellow--

Just then the man looked up and met his gaze. It was the look of a
complete stranger. Mr. Hadley politely dropped his eyes. But he did not
drop his thinking, and so keenly conscious was he of that face that he
knew instantly when the other rose from the table.

Mr. Hadley glanced up again. The other was leaving his dinner
almost untouched. Mr. Hadley himself arose. His memory for faces was
remarkably good; that man had Pearson’s face, he might be a brother; at
any rate, he would speak to him; it could not be Pearson, but why was
he leaving his dinner uneaten?

The man, who was sauntering out apparently without haste, glanced back
and saw Mr. Hadley advancing toward him, and a look came over his face
that Mr. Hadley did not mistake. In a flash he knew it _was_ Pearson;
impossible as it seemed, it _was_ Pearson, and he was afraid!

A moment or two later a placid policeman just turning a corner was
knocked nearly off his feet and out of his dignity by a man coming
from the opposite direction, a man past middle age with white hair and
flashing eyes.

“Officer,” he cried, grasping the representative of the law by the arm,
“arrest that man! the one in brown with the striped coat!”

“What’s the charge?” inquired the policeman.

“There will be charge enough,” cried the other; and from his
earnestness and the rapidity with which the striped coat was
disappearing down the street, the policeman concluded that the owner
of it needed arresting and started forthwith in pursuit.

Within two blocks he had two of his brother officers chasing with him,
and farther on they gathered up another one, to say nothing of the
several onlookers who joined for the pure pleasure of the chase.

The policemen were used to chasing men, but Mr. Hadley was not, and
in spite of his utmost efforts he was soon left in the rear. As he
kept on, panting and puffing, and seeing more and more ground stretch
between himself and the bluecoats, and was finally left out of sight
altogether, it came over him what a good idea it would have been for
them to have carried paper scent, as the boys used to when they played
hare and hounds, for now they were like to catch their man so far away
that he would never be able to find them.

And, indeed, it was a long and merry chase, and when it came to an end,
as luck would have it, a patrol-wagon was just passing, and into it the
triumphant bluecoats thrust their man in the striped coat, one of them
going with him while the rest dispersed, the first retracing his steps
till he met the breathless Mr. Hadley.

“Got him? Of course we got him. He’s safe enough, never you worry. You
can go down and appear against him in the morning.”

“In the morning!” gasped Mr. Hadley. “In the morning! I’m not waiting
till morning. It’s right now that I want to talk to him!”

The officer regarded him a moment, and then, “Would yer mind tellin’ me
what the man has been doin’?” he inquired.

Mr. Hadley leaned against a building till he had regained his breath
and his self-control.

“Six or seven years ago,” he said, “my five children went out in a
little gasoline launch for a day’s excursion. That man went with them
to run the launch for them. We never saw them again and could get no
trace of them, and supposed they had all drowned together. But to-day
I ran across him, and when he saw that I recognized him and was going
to speak to him, he ran. You will understand that I can’t wait till
to-morrow to know what became of my children.”

The officer glanced at his watch. “My own time is up,” he said. “I’ll
walk up with you.”

“Take your time an’ get your breath back,” he added presently. “He is
safe enough; ’twas Larry O’Flannagan had him by the shoulder, an’ no
man ever yet broke from Larry’s grip when he once got a good grip on
’im. He’s safe enough.”

Safe enough he certainly was, and an hour later he stood face to face
with the father of the Hadley children.

“You’ve made a mistake,” he repeated. “You’ve made a mistake. My name
is not Pearson. My name is Franks, John Franks. I never lived in the
Port; never was across the line into Mexico at all, in fact. No, I
never saw you before, not to my knowledge at least.”

He said it all over again stubbornly, and, with dark and scowling face,
he declared that Mr. Hadley would be sorry for this trouble he was
making him, and he wanted it understood most emphatically that he had
never been in Mexico six years ago or at any other time and that his
name was John Franks.

But Mr. Hadley knew he was _not_ mistaken, he knew the man _was_
Pearson, and he would not back down or give one hair’s breadth, and
under his steady, stern gaze Pearson suddenly threw up the game with
a vehement burst of profanity, winding up with the inquiry as to what
earthly difference it made to Hadley about the launch, anyhow?

Mr. Hadley stared at him a moment.

[Illustration: “WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY CHILDREN?”]

“Launch!” he said slowly,--“launch! What do you suppose I care about
the launch? What I want to know is, what did you do with my children?”

It was now Pearson’s turn to stare. His jaw dropped, and his face
turned ashy.

“Your children? What do you mean? Didn’t they find Miss Marian and the
kids all right?”

“Find them! Where? Where did you leave them? They’ve never been seen
from that day to this. Speak up! What did you do with them?”

Pearson crumpled down into a chair. There was no more resistance in him.

“Good Heavens! Hadley, I never dreamed of any harm coming to them. I’ll
tell you all I know about it.”

And tell it he did, holding nothing back. He told it all,--how
Cunningham had discharged him for no fault of his, so he declared, and
how he had vowed that he would get even with the dude; he wouldn’t
take dirty treatment from no man. He had nothing against the girl and
the kids; he wouldn’t have hurt them, but he didn’t suppose it would.
People were going out to those picnics every day, and they often camped
overnight, and when he saw what a daisy the launch was,--she ran like
oil,--it just came to him that he could leave them there on the Island
and run the launch over to Santa Anita, where he knew a couple of
fellows who would take it off his hands.

So he did it; he was owing the fellow at Santa Anita about seventy-five
dollars that he would have paid long before if Cunningham had not fired
him; and he got there before the storm got really bad and hunted up his
friend that night and found he would be glad to take the launch on the
debt and pay him the difference.

The storm was sure a bad one, but he had thought that Miss Marian and
the kids would be all right, for the boy had been telling about a house
on the Island around on the sheltered side and a cave, too, and he
left them all the food and blankets, and he thought Cunningham would
be after them the first thing in the morning. He’d left Santa Anita as
soon as the storm was over so anybody could leave, and, of course, he
had not heard anything about the tragedy at the Port, but he’d swear by
everything holy that he never dreamed of any harm coming to them.

Mr. Hadley explained then; he told the man huddled up before him of
the search that had been made, and how he himself had just in the last
week learned what and where Smugglers’ Island was, and how he was even
then on his way to see if after all these years there was some trace
still to be found in San Moros.

When he had finished, Pearson straightened up a little.

“Look a-here, Hadley,” he said, “I’ve been some tough, but I’d never
’a’ done a thing like that if I’d ’a’ known it, and since then I’ve
been straight. I told you the truth when I said my name was Franks;
that is my name; I used Pearson at the Port for other reasons, but when
I got back to God’s country I went back to my own name. I was married
under it about a year later. My wife is a fine woman, and we’ve got two
fine children. I’ve been as straight as a string and we’ve got some
ahead. O Hadley, don’t put me through for this!--it will come harder on
my wife and the kids than it will on me if you do,--and I’ll go down
with you and help you hunt, show you the way and all; and you can use
my money to the last cent; it ain’t much, but it’s all yourn to carry
on the search; and I’ll stand by you and help you as long as there’s
life in me, for, as God is my witness, Hadley, I never meant no harm
to Miss Marian and your kids. I wouldn’t ask it if’t wasn’t for my own
kids.”

Mr. Hadley was thinking. He believed the man was telling the truth, and
no punishment meted out to him would bring back the dead. As far as
that went, what punishment would be fitter than to take him back with
him and let him see, if, indeed, there was anything left to see, the
terrible suffering his act had caused? And there would be something
left; not six years nor seven would destroy what five deaths had left
on that grim island in San Moros.

Before they sailed, Mr. Hadley had time to write to his wife and tell
her of his finding Pearson and of what he had learned from him and of
the latter’s agony of remorse. After receiving the letter, Mrs. Hadley
sat down and wrote most of its contents to Mrs. Harris, for she knew
their old friends would be anxious to hear any news. After hearing that
letter read, Clarence declared that he could have lived seven years, or
twice seven years on Smugglers’, and he dared bet Marian could. But
his father and mother were quite sure there was no hope of that.

“Why,” said Mrs. Harris, “Jennie would not have lived three days after
exposure to that storm. I never knew such a delicate child.”

“And,” Mr. Harris declared, “if they had lived any length of time at
all, some one would have seen some sign of them in all this time.
Probably they took refuge in that cave and were washed out and drowned
the first night.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted. “I’d forgotten about Jennie being so sickly,
and Delbert himself was not what you would call rugged, but if they
lived through the storm there’s a chance, I tell you. Their not being
seen since doesn’t cut any figure. There was a reason for that. I never
told Delbert, for I didn’t want to frighten him, and he was a nervous
little chap, but no Indian ever went to Smugglers’. You couldn’t have
hired one to, and I tell you, if they lived through the first night,
there’s a chance! and oh, glory! _wouldn’t_ I have liked to go along?”

The steamer that Mr. Hadley and Pearson had taken passage on was pretty
well filled up with passengers. Among others there was a group of
mining men going to the Port, whence they would make their way inland,
and there was a wealthy Mexican family also bound for the Port, with a
half-dozen fine-looking daughters who reminded you of all the Spanish
romance you had ever read every time you looked at them.

There were various others, and among them all Mr. Hadley and Pearson
attracted no particular attention until the morning they were nearing
the Port, when it was learned that Mr. Franks and the white-haired
gentleman with him had a launch aboard and were going to be set down in
it out in the Gulf and were not going into the Port at all. It seemed
that the captain had known about it all the time, but to the passengers
it seemed like a very queer thing to do.

However, some one made the announcement that the two were going to
examine some guano caves for a rich company, and that seemed to explain
everything, and the passengers watched with interest while the launch
was being made ready and lowered, and the mining men all hung over the
rail and cheered as she shot off across the water, and the pretty
señoritas waved their handkerchiefs, and then everybody turned his
attention to watching the channel, for if the passengers did not keep a
sharp lookout, what was to hinder the captain from forgetting himself
and coming up sharp on the rocks?

[Illustration: THE PRETTY SEÑORITAS WAVED THEIR HANDKERCHIEFS]

They passed the Rosalie Group before long. On dark and cloudy nights
people on boats passing there can hear children crying, and if the
night is actually stormy, you are likely to see Marian Hadley walk
across the white-capped waves wrapped in a long cloak. This is a solemn
fact. The captain told it himself. He said he did not tell the tale at
night. No one connected the name of Hadley with the white-haired Mr.
Hadley who had left them in the launch.

Pearson was running the launch. Mr. Hadley had Clarence’s map spread
out on his knee. There was silence between them. Pearson’s face looked
drawn and old. Mr. Hadley was tired and patient; he was looking at the
map, but he was not thinking of it.

Pearson leaned forward to look at the little map.

“I don’t remember just what the shore-line looked like along here,” he
said, “but I guess I shan’t miss San Moros.”

He did not, either. About noon he turned into the place, remembering
Delbert’s instructions which tallied with the map correctly. The tide
was high just then, anyway, and there was no danger of sandbars or
sunken rocks. In a little more he could point out to Mr. Hadley the
outline of Smugglers’ Island as he remembered it.

Afterwards, as they got pretty close to it, he said in a low voice,
“Maybe we’d better go in back of it. That’s where they said the harbor
and the pier were, and it will be a better place to moor the launch
than this pile of rocks ahead.”

Mr. Hadley assented; so they turned her nose and ran out by the sandy
point and round it in back into the harbor.

It seemed shadowy in there. It was dark and uncanny, Pearson thought.
He shuddered. Not a sign of life had they seen other than the seabirds,
for the old canoe was too far up the beach to catch the eye, and the
wickiup was so covered with vines that it blended perfectly with its
background, especially as the doors and window were shut.

Had they landed, they would have seen the path. Had Marian’s
watermelons been a little higher, they would have attracted attention
by reason of their regular rows, but they were scarcely above the holes
yet. At the pier, too, there was nothing to tell them anything. The
raft was farther along, back of some mango bushes.

There were the bananas and the palms. The corral fence was so
overgrown that, like the wickiup, it attracted no attention till one
was very close to it.

They stepped out of the launch and moored her to the pier. Mr. Hadley
noticed that Pearson’s face was gray again. He was losing his nerve.
It seemed to him as if the air in this narrow slit in the hills were
suffocating him.

“I’ll take the things out,” he said to his companion.

“All right,” said Mr. Hadley. His voice was quiet and even, and,
turning, he walked toward the hill.

Pearson stepped back into the launch, cursing himself under his breath
for his own lack of self-control, for he was trembling; but taking the
things out and carrying them up past the pier steadied him a little.

Then he started to follow Mr. Hadley, and was glancing about wondering
if there was any particular choice of spots to pitch camp in, when
something on the hilltop caught his eyes. He stopped and stared with
his mouth open. Out from among the bushes into an open space came
one, two, three, four, five persons, and some of them were children!
A sudden weakness came over him. He dropped where he was, and for a
moment everything went whirling black. When he came to himself he was
sitting on the ground, his knees clasped in his arms, as he rocked back
and forth, repeating over and over his wife’s name, “Rose, Rose, Rose,
it’s them! O Rose, it’s them! I ain’t killed ’em, Rose! Rose!”

[Illustration: SUDDENLY CAME A CHORUS OF CLEAR YOUNG VOICES]

Mr. Hadley had scanned the hillside to no avail as he started to walk
toward it, and then he noticed what seemed to be a path leading to a
mass of brilliant bloom beyond. He followed in the path. The tracks
seemed to be those of deer.

But when he came to the blossoms he was surprised. There were
nasturtiums and poppies, a wild riot of them beside a little spring,
or shallow, scooped-out well, that was walled with rocks except at one
place where stepping-stones led down. And there, sitting half buried in
the clear water, shaded by overhanging bloom, was a two-quart Mason jar
about half full of oysters.

A most charming refrigerator truly, and Mr. Hadley stared at it
stupidly, not even yet understanding, when suddenly came a chorus
of clear young voices calling to him from above, and, turning, the
father saw what he had never hoped to see again this side the gates of
heaven,--his five children racing down the hill to meet him.




CHAPTER XIV

THE END OF THE PICNIC


Pearson sat on the pier, swinging his feet. His feelings would have
been hard to describe, they were so very mixed up. One moment he was
swearing softly at the launch that was dipping gracefully up and down
before him, then he grinned and whistled, also softly, a few bars of a
rollicking tune.

He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the group up there by that
tumbled pile of red and yellow and green. He could hear their voices,
but he could not hear what they were saying. By and by, when they had
had a little more time, perhaps he would go up there, though what in
thunder he would say was more than he knew. Anyway, they were alive.
That was something to tell Rose. Rose! How her face had looked when
she bade him good-bye. She had known that he had been tough,--thank
goodness he had not lied to her!--but he had not gone into details,
and when he had had to tell her about that affair at the Port,--well,
it was a darned sight worse than anything else he had had to do. And
when she kissed him good-bye, she had whispered that she would pray for
him. Pray! Pearson laughed a little and kicked at the rocks. Wa’n’t
that just like a woman? Pray! What good was it going to do to pray
now about a thing that happened seven years ago? But she would pray
all right, and like as not she would always feel that her prayers had
had something to do with their finding the lost ones alive and safe.
Suppose they had died! What good would praying have done then? he
wondered.

But Rose would pray just the same, and when he got back to her,--he
might have to ride a brake-beam to do it,--she would turn in and work
her fingers to the bone to help him get another nest-egg rolled up, and
never a word of blame would she say. No; she would spend all her spare
breath thanking God that her prayers had been answered.

What a queer thing life was, anyway! Here, seven years ago Cunningham
had served him, Pearson, low-down mean, and he had retaliated. The
affair was between him and Cunningham, wasn’t it? It would seem so; but
look you, seven years afterwards the blow he dealt recoils on--whom?
Himself? No, not by a jugful! On Rose; on Rose and his youngsters,
the very people of the whole wide world that he loved and wanted most
desperately to protect. If it had only been him, he wouldn’t say a
word, but--darn it all!

Well, there they were coming down. He rose and turned. It was an
awkward situation. Really, it would have been easier to stand up to be
shot.

It was Marian and Delbert. Pearson drew a long breath, and, throwing
back his shoulders, went to meet them.

Marian was first. She held out her hand, all brown and calloused, and
her eyes shone at him from under wet lashes.

“Mr. Pearson,” she said, “papa has explained it all to us, and--well, I
guess I am too happy to lay up anything against you to-day.”

Pearson took her hand. He choked a little, but found nothing to say.
Then Delbert, the little, slender, nervous, eager lad, stood there,
tall as his sister, straight and strong, and his clear eyes were steady
and stern.

“Marion is of a pretty forgiving disposition,” and his voice was cold
and held scorn. “I think myself--”

But Pearson reached out and gripped the hand the boy had not offered
him, and found his voice.

“Young man,” he said, “I am so all-fired glad to see you that I don’t
care a red cent _what_ you think!”

Marian laid a gentle hand on her brother’s arm.

“O Delbert,” she said softly, “not to-day, dear, not with papa here to
take us all back safe to mamma. Besides,--it isn’t a parallel case, I
know,--but suppose Davie had died that day he fell!”

Delbert looked from her face, tremulous with joy, back to Pearson’s,
and, remembering that terrible day that he had been in some small
measure to blame for, he suddenly understood, understood something of
what the man in front of him probably had been suffering.

His face softened, and he returned the pressure of the other’s hand.

“All right!” he said boyishly. “I guess what Marian says goes. You will
have to fight it out with Mr. Cunningham about the launch, but come on
up to dinner now. Say,” he continued with a wistful eye on the pile of
things from the launch, “you got anything to eat in those?--any bread
or crackers?”

Up at the wickiup Mr. Hadley sat on a chunk of driftwood and looked
over the treasures Esther and Davie showed to him, while Marian and
Jennie prepared dinner.

There was a great deal to show. There were the rabbit-skin books and
the paper-tree-bark ones and the shell and bone and wooden toys. There
were the ropes and baskets.

Davie could not remember his father, but he curled down at his feet
and, with an angelic expression on his face, smiled up into his eyes
in the sunniest way possible. And every two minutes he would remember
some other treasure and, hopping up, would go to fetch it. His father,
watching his little limping gait, smiled at Marian, who shook her head
sadly. “Too bad, daughter, but I think mamma will be willing to accept
him, even if he _is_ a little damaged.”

“We’ll throw off a little on his price,” said Jennie.

Pearson had brought up the lunch from the launch, and the Hawks fell
upon it with the greatest enthusiasm. After dinner they began to pack
up those things they wished to take with them.

And, of course, before they left the Island they had to show the old
canoe that would not need to be finished now, and the tar retort, and
High-Tide Pool, and the watermelon-patch, and everything else.

“I’ll bet,” said Delbert, “that this place will be more popular for
picnics from the Port than the Rosalies for a while.”

So Marian left her dishes, the kettle and little dishpan, the knives
and forks, and even the glass jar on the table. They put everything in
neat order and tied the window down, and put the storm doors in place
and fastened them, for though they did not expect ever to see the place
again, they could not bear to think of the dear little wickiup standing
untidy and open to the elements.

They took a last survey from the top of the hill and then went down the
path, the smugglers’ old path, to the pier.

They turned out the little burros, but when they called Jackie, he
was nowhere to be found. He had wandered off somewhere with the
other burros, as he had done sometimes of late. The children, Davie
especially, felt badly to go without saying good-bye to Jackie, but
Marian explained that he would probably forget them in a little while
and would be perfectly happy with the other burros, and perhaps would
be happier than if they had stayed and made him carry loads for them
once in a while. So Davie smoothed out his face, and curled down at his
father’s feet again, quite contented. Nothing ever upset Davie for any
great length of time.

So the launch puffed out of the harbor and round the point, and then
Smugglers’ was left behind them, and they were crossing the bay past
the salt reefs, and now were out of sight of the egg islands, and soon
were encountering the big waves that had guarded their prison so long.
Jennie laughed, remembering how seasick she had been when they came
in. Then San Moros itself passed from their sight, and the life there
glided into a closed past.

Already Marian was planning a new and different future.

“Father,” she said, “you say you had to mortgage the home to get the
money to come for us. A mortgage is always a hard thing to lift, isn’t
it?”

“Apt to be, daughter,” replied Mr. Hadley, “but after seeing what
you children did with your bare hands back on that Island, I am not
worrying about a little thing like a mortgage. If you don’t like the
place, we’ll get your uncle to let us in some way on some of that wild
land of his up in the mountains, and you can carve out and build up a
place to suit yourselves.”

The steamer at the Port had unloaded her passengers,--those that were
to get off there,--and had since been busy taking in a nice little
pile of cargo. Her captain wished to go out that night, and they were
about ready to start. There were a good many down on the pier, coming
and going, and the place was lighted by a few lanterns, leaving great
spaces of shadow in between their circles of light.

Mr. Cunningham’s new launch was just in with a picnic party from the
Rosalies. They were unloading shawls and baskets and pails of clams.

“I say, Cunningham,” called out one of this party, “is that Beekman’s
crowd we passed out there?”

“No,” was the answer; “Beekman will not be in for two days. I had a
wire to-day.”

“Well, who in thunder was it, then? We passed a launch out there. If it
wasn’t Beekman, who was it?”

“Perhaps it was the two men the captain dropped in the Gulf this
morning. He said they would be in in a few days. Perhaps they changed
their minds.”

“Not much. This batch had women and children. They were laughing and
singing,--mighty fine voices, too. We supposed it was those new cousins
of Mrs. Beekman’s from New York.”

“No, not they yet, but there comes a launch now. By Jove, there are
women in it too.”

Out of the darkness of the night and the water a launch came swiftly
into the broad light of the stream. A moment they showed clear as in
daylight to the crowd on the pier, but that was not long enough for
any one to recognize those upturned faces before they glided into a
shadowy place not far from the other launch.

People watched the new arrival curiously as it discharged its
passengers, but they did not come out of the shadow.

Then one man detached himself from the group and advanced into the
light in front of Cunningham.

“Well, Cunningham,” he said in a clear voice, “there’s your launch.”

Cunningham stared at him.

“There’s your launch, I say,” repeated the other, thrusting his face
forward a little. Still no answer from the bewildered Cunningham, who
could not imagine what he was talking about.

The newcomer straightened up and placed his arms akimbo.

“I say,” he repeated again, “that I have brought back your launch.
Launch, man, launch! There--is--your--launch!”

From the group in the shadow came a little rippling laugh.

Cunningham started. It was nearly seven long years, but he had not
forgotten Marian Hadley’s laugh. He snatched at a lantern, but before
he could detach it from its hook, a young fellow beside him, a great
stalwart fellow, yelled and began to swing his hat.

“The Hadleys!” he shouted, “the Hadleys!” and threw the hat into the
air, but before it could fall he was rushing over, calling Delbert.

Marian, laughing, grasped his arm.

“For Heaven’s sake, Bobbie,” she said, “take us girls up to your mother
before they get here with those lanterns.”

Late, very late, that night Delbert sat on the edge of Bobbie’s bed and
said to him:--

“Now, look here! what I want to know is, how in creation it could
happen that, with that bay fairly teeming with fish and turtles, there
could be over six years with never a canoe really inside of it, never
one within hailing, or even signaling, distance of the Island, though
it must be known among the Indians that there is fresh water and an old
banana-patch there.”

[Illustration: THE HADLEYS! THE HADLEYS!]

“Simplest thing in the world,” said Bobbie, tossing his shoes to one
side and peeling off his socks. “All the Indians around these parts
know that San Moros is bad medicine for a native. I never thought
much about it, but I’ll bet on it now, that it was those same old
smugglers. Probably they murdered some Indians there to prevent their
going off and telling of the place, or something like that. I never
heard of the Island, but I have heard the Indians say numbers of times
that people who go in to camp there never come out again. They think
the farther shores are inhabited by some style of devil or hobgoblin,
and I remember now I have heard them saying that in the last few years
they have seen devil fires burning there.”

“Devil fires!” said Delbert helplessly, dropping his hands to his
sides. “Devil fires!”

“Your camp-fires, of course,” returned Bobbie; “but if those fellows in
the canoes that you tried to go out and intercept,--if they saw you at
all,--that would be explanation enough of why they put up their sails
and put off as fast as they could.”

       *       *       *       *       *

To the mother waiting on that far-off mortgaged farm, a message went
out that night, the last one sent from the office. It contained eight
words, and it was followed by a fat, fat letter the next day, which
explained that it in turn was to be followed by a party of six just as
soon as certain absolutely necessary sewing could be done.

But, after all, the telegram contained the heart of the matter, the
sunshine of the whole wide world and part of that of the next world,
all on a piece of yellow paper. At least, Mrs. Hadley thought so when
she tore it open and read:--

“All found alive and well on Smugglers’ Island.”


THE END


  The Riverside Press
  CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
  U . S . A




Transcriber’s Note

Spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been retained as published
in the original publication except as follows:

  Page 40
    to take if off and show them _changed to_
    to take it off and show them

  Page 57
    cluster of towsled heads _changed to_
    cluster of tousled heads

  Page 119
    In my coat pocket _changed to_
    “In my coat pocket

  Page 135
     kind of wood.” said Delbert _changed to_
     kind of wood,” said Delbert

  Page 349
    they could not bare to _changed to_
    they could not bear to

  Page 354
    with that bay fairly teaming _changed to_
    with that bay fairly teeming