"Jack's right," said Wilkins. "I were feeling a bit idle mysel', but there's no sense in't; so lend us hand on an axe, and I'se be none the worse for a stroke of work."
While the young men were engaged in cutting away the bark for the shells of the canoes, and the fibres of the stringy bark for tying them, and collecting the strong gum for cement, Baldabella descended to the river, and soon speared two immense fish, which seemed to be a species of mullet; and she also brought in a quantity of the fresh-water mussels, the shells of which were so useful for domestic purposes.
The broiled fish and hastily prepared oat-cake—or damper, as Wilkins called it—formed an excellent supper; and though the nights had now become cold, even in that tropical region, they slept on beds of heath, covered with opossum cloaks, without injury or disturbance.
CHAPTER XXV.
Boat-building again.—Unlucky Ruth.—The Woods on Fire.—Dangers on Land and Water.—The Wounded Girl.—A Home among the Mountains.—The Bottle-tree.—The Bee-hunt.—Bean-coffee.—The Lost Hunters.
At the first merry cry of the laughing jackass, which announced the dawn as regularly as the English cock-crow, the workmen rose to labor at their hopeful undertaking; and before many hours were passed the canoes were nearly finished, and the women were busy cutting down grass for seats; when Ruth, who had left them, came rushing back through the wood, with her wildest look of distraction, crying out, "They seed me! Miss Marget, they seed me!"
"Thou unlucky lass!" exclaimed Jenny. "Where hast thou been? and who's seen thee?"
"Them black men, they seed me!" answered she. "I were cutting some oats for my hens; and I heared 'em shouting out their coo-ee, and when I looked round I seed a lot of 'em, a long way off, and I skriked out; I couldn't help it, Miss Marget, and then they coo-eed again, and off I ran. But I'se feared they heared me skrike, onyhow."
Margaret, in deep dismay, communicated this unfortunate event to her brothers, and Arthur went through the wood to reconnoitre. From a hidden retreat he observed a troop of men, still at a great distance, who appeared to be stooping down to mark some track on the ground, from which he judged Ruth's cries had been unnoticed. He returned in haste to report his observations.