Into the Primitive Part 18

This was easier said than done. Fortunately, the spring was only a few yards distant, and after many trips, with her palm-leaf hat for bowl, the girl carried enough water to sprinkle all the powdery ashes. Over them she strewed the leaves and gra.s.s which she had gathered while the fire was burning. The driest of the gra.s.s, arranged in a far corner, promised a more comfortable bed than had been her lot for the last three nights.

During this work she had been careful not to forget the fire at the tree. Yet when, near sundown, she called the others to the third meal of leopard meat, Blake grumbled at the tree for being what he termed such a confounded tough proposition.

"Good thing there's lots of wood here, Win," he added. "We'll keep this fire going till the blamed thing topples over, if it takes a year."

"Oh, but you surely will not stay so far from the baobab to-night!"

exclaimed Miss Leslie.

"Hold hard!" soothed Blake. "You've no license to get the jumps yet a while. We'll have another fire by the baobab. So you needn't worry."

A few minutes later they went back to the baobab, and Winthrope began helping Miss Leslie to construct a bamboo screen in the narrow entrance of the tree-cave, while Blake built the second fire.

As Winthrope was unable to tell time by the stars, Blake took the first watch. At sunset, following the engineer's advice, Winthrope lay down with his feet to the small watch-fire, and was asleep before twilight had deepened into night. f.a.gged out by the mental and bodily stress of the day, he slept so soundly that it seemed to him he had hardly lost consciousness when he was roused by a rough hand on his forehead.

"What is it?" he mumbled.

"'Bout one o'clock," said Blake. "Wake up! I ran overtime, 'cause the morning watch is the toughest. But I can't keep 'wake any longer."

"I say, this is a beastly bore," remarked Winthrope, sitting up.

"Um-m," grunted Blake, who was already on his back.

Winthrope rubbed his eyes, rose wearily, and drew a blazing stick from the fire. With this upraised as a torch, he peered around into the darkness, and advanced towards the spring.

When, having satisfied his thirst, he returned somewhat hurriedly to the fire, he was startled by the sight of a pale face gazing at him from between the leaves of the bamboo screen.

"My dear Miss Genevieve, what is the matter?" he exclaimed.

"Hush! Is he asleep?"

"Like a top."

"Thank Heaven! . . . . Good-night."

"Good-night--er--I say, Miss Genevieve--"

But the girl disappeared, and Winthrope, after a glance at Blake's placid face, hurried along the cleft to stack the other fire. When he returned he noticed two bamboo rods which Blake had begun to shape into bow staves. He looked them over, with a sneer at Blake's seemingly unskilful workmanship; but he made no attempt to finish the bows.

CHAPTER XI

A DESPOILED WARDROBE

Soon after sunrise Miss Leslie was awakened by the snap and dull crash of a falling tree. She made a hasty toilet, and ran out around the baobab.

The burned tree, eaten half through by the fire, had been pushed over against the cliff by Blake and Winthrope. Both had already climbed up, and now stood on the edge of the cliff.

"h.e.l.lo, Miss Jenny!" shouted Blake. "We've got here at last. Want to come up?"

"Not now, thank you."

"It's easy enough. But you're right. Try your hand again at the cutlets, won't you? While they're frying, we'll get some eggs for dessert How does that strike you?"

"We have no way to cook them."

"Roast 'em in the ashes. So long!"

Miss Leslie cooked breakfast over the watch-fire, for the other had been scattered and stamped out by the men when the tree fell. They came back in good time, walking carefully, that they might not break the eggs with which their pockets bulged. Between them, they had brought a round dozen and a half. Blake promptly began stowing all in the hot ashes, while Winthrope related their little adventure with unwonted enthusiasm.

"You should have come with us, Miss Genevieve," he began. "This time of day it is glorious on the cliff top. Though the rock is bare, there is a fine view--"

"Fine view of grub near the end," interpolated Blake.

"Ah, yes; the birds--you must take a look at them, Miss Genevieve! The sea end of the cliff is alive with them--hundreds and thousands, all huddled together and fighting for room. They are a sight, I a.s.sure you!

They're plucky, too. It was well we took sticks with us. As it was, one of the gannets--b.o.o.bies, Blake calls them--caught me a nasty nip when I went to lift her off the nest."

"Best way is to kick them off," explained Blake. "But the point is that we've hopped over the starvation stile. Understand? The whole blessed cliff end is an omelette waiting for our pan. Pa.s.s the leopardettes, Miss Jenny."

When the last bit of meat had disappeared, Blake raked the eggs from the ashes, and began to crack them, solemnly sniffing at each before he laid it on its leaf platter. Some were a trifle "high." None, however, were thrown away.

When it was all over, Winthrope contemplated the scattered sh.e.l.ls with a satisfied air.

"Do you know," he remarked, "this is the first time I have felt--er--replenished since we found those cocoanuts."

"How about one of 'em now to top off on?" questioned Blake.

Miss Leslie sighed. "Why did you speak of them! I am still hungry enough to eat more eggs--a dozen--that is, if we had a little salt and b.u.t.ter."

"And a silver cup and napkins!" added Blake. "About the salt, though, we'll have to get some before long, and some kind of vegetable food. It won't do to keep up this whole meat menu."

"If only those little bamboo sprouts were as good as they look--like a kind of asparagus!" murmured Miss Leslie.

"I've heard that the Chinese eat them," said Winthrope.

"They eat rats, too," commented Blake.

"We might at least try them," persisted Miss Leslie.

"How? Raw?"

"I have heard papa tell of roasting corn when he was a boy."

"That's so; and roasting-ears are better than boiled. Win, I guess we'll have a sample of bamboo asparagus _a la_ Les-lee!"

Winthrope took the penknife, and fetched a handful of young sprouts from the bamboo thicket. They were heated over the coals on a grill of green branches, and devoured half raw.

"Say," mumbled Blake, as he ruminated on the last shoot, "we're getting on some for this smell hole of a coast: house and chicken ranch, and vegetables in our front yard-- We've got old Bobbie Crusoe beat, hands down, on the start-off, and he with his shipful of stuff for handicap!"