Into the Primitive Part 3

"Fine as salmon. This is only a small one, but--"

"Fifteen pounds, if an ounce!" cried Blake, and he thrust his hand in his pocket. There was a moment's silence, and Winthrope, glancing up, saw the other staring in blank dismay.

"What's up!" he asked.

"Lost my knife."

"When?--in the pool? If we felt about--"

"No; aboard ship, or in the surf--"

"Here is my knife."

"Yes; almost big enough to whittle a match! Mine would have done us some good."

"It is the best steel."

"All right; let's see you cut up the fish."

"But you know, Blake, I shouldn't know how to go about it. I never did such a thing."

"And you, Miss Jenny? Girls are supposed to know about cooking."

"I never cooked anything in all my life, Mr. Blake, and it's alive,--and--and I am very thirsty, Mr. Blake!"

"Lord!" commented Blake. "Give me that knife."

Though the blade was so small, the American's hand was strong. After some little haggling, the coryphene was killed and dressed. Blake washed both it and his hands in the pool, and began to cut slices of flesh from the fish's tail.

"We have no fire," Winthrope reminded him, flushing at the word.

"That's true," a.s.sented Blake, in a cheerful tone, and he offered Winthrope two of the pieces of raw flesh. "Here's your breakfast. The trimmed piece is for Miss Leslie."

"But it's raw! Really, I could not think of eating raw fish. Could you, Miss Leslie?"

Miss Leslie shuddered. "Oh, no!--and I'm so thirsty I could not eat anything."

"You bet you can!" replied Blake. "Both of you take that fish, and go to chewing. It's the stuff to ease your thirst while we look for water.

Good Lord!--in a week you'll be glad to eat raw snake. Finnicky over clean fish, when you swallow canvas-back all but raw, and beef running blood, and raw oysters with their stomachs full of disintegrated animal matter, to put it politely! You couldn't tell rattlesnake broth from chicken, and dog makes first-rate veal--when you've got to eat it. I've had it straight from them that know, that over in France they eat snails and fish-worms. It's all a matter of custom or the style."

"To be sure, the j.a.panese eat raw fish," admitted Winthrope.

"Yes; and you'd swallow your share of it if you had an invite to a swell dinner in Tokio. Go on now, both of you. It's no joke, I tell you. You've got to eat, if you expect to get to water before night.

Understand? See that headland south? Well, it's a hundred to one we'll not find water short of there, and if we make it by night, we'll be doing better than I figure from the look of these bogs. Now go to chewing. That's it! That's fine, Miss Jenny!"

Miss Leslie had forced herself to take a nibble of the raw fish. The flavor proved less repulsive than she had expected, and its moisture was so grateful to her parched mouth that she began to eat with eagerness.

Not to be outdone, Winthrope promptly followed her lead. Blake had already cut himself a second slice. After he had cut more for his companions, he began to look them over with a closeness that proved embarra.s.sing to Miss Leslie.

"Here's more of the good stuff," he said. "While you're chewing it, we'll sort of take stock. Everybody sh.e.l.l out everything. Here's my outfit--three shillings, half a dozen poker chips, and not another blessed-- Say, what's become of that whiskey flask? Have you seen my flask?"

"Here it is, right beside me, Mr. Blake," answered Miss Leslie. "But it is empty."

"Might be worse! What you got?--hair-pins, watch? No pocket, I suppose?"

"None; and no watch. Even most of my pins are gone," replied the girl, and she raised her hand to her loosely coiled hair.

"Well, hold on to what you've got left. They may come in for fish-hooks. Let's see your shoes."

Miss Leslie slowly thrust a slender little foot just beyond the hem of her draggled white skirt.

"Good Lord!" groaned Blake, "slippers, and high heels at that! How do you expect to walk in those things?"

"I can at least try," replied the girl, with spirit.

"Hobble! Pa.s.s 'em over here, Winnie, my boy."

The slippers were handed over. Blake took one after the other, and wrenched off the heel close to its base.

"Now you've at least got a pair of slippers," he said, tossing them back to their owner. "Tie them on tight with a couple of your ribbons, if you don't want to lose them in the mud. Now, Winthrope, what you got beside the knife?"

Winthrope held out a bunch of long flat keys and his cigarette case.

He opened the latter, and was about to throw away the two remaining cigarettes when Blake grasped his wrist.

"Hold on! even they may come in for something. We'll at least keep them until we need the case."

"And the keys!"

"Make arrow-heads, if we can get fire."

"I've heard of savages making fire by rubbing wood."

"Yes; and we're a long way from being savages,--at present. All the show we have is to find some kind of quartz or flint, and the sooner we start to look the better. Got your slippers tied, Miss Jenny?"

"Yes; I think they'll do."

"Think! It's knowing's the thing. Here, let me look."

The girl shrank back; but Blake stooped and examined first one slipper and then the other. The ribbons about both were tied in dainty bows.

Blake jerked them loose and twisted them firmly over and under the slippers and about the girl's slender ankles before knotting the ends.

"There; that's more like. You're not going to a dance," he growled.

He thrust the empty whiskey flask into his hip pocket, and went back to pa.s.s a sling of reeds through the gills of the coryphene.

"All ready now," he called. "Let's get a move on. Keep my coat closer about your shoulders, Miss Jenny, and keep your shade up, if you don't want a sunstroke."

"Thank you, Blake, I'll see to that," said Winthrope. "I'm going to help Miss Leslie along. I've fastened our two shades together, so that they will answer for both of us."