"We're in a devil of a stew here," he exclaimed after breakfast. "We'll have to get this place fixed up right now. Still, some of us ought to go down to the West Camp and take a look at the cache. Luckily there are no animals on the island, so we have nothing to fear from that source."
"Why can't Loll and I go down to the camp, Shane?" broke in Jean. "Then all you men can get busy on the house. The poor, little old thing looks as if it had a black eye, with the porch battered down over the door."
Boreland was at first not in favor of the idea, doubting that it was safe for them to go alone. At last, however, he consented.
"Keep to the upper beach line," he cautioned, as the two started out, "and remember, if the sea is breaking near the bluff when you come home, wait on the other side until the tide drops before you attempt to cross."
After the long confinement in the crowded cabin Jean was as delighted as her capering little nephew to feel again the freedom of the beach. In spite of all the hardships—perhaps because of them—she was growing to love the sands of Kon Klayu, and to look upon this incalculable ocean as a sort of fairy god-mother, who, with every tide, brought up something different to lay at her feet. She never started out for a walk along the sea without experiencing that delightful, childish sense of expectancy which is so keenly a part of the life of Alaska.
While Kobuk trotted on ahead she and Loll, remembering the talk of beach mining to which they had so often listened, scanned the way for ruby sand, the carrier of gold. But this morning the beach was untidy with great masses of fresh kelp and seaweeds from the deep, torn by the storm and scattered everywhere.
"Oh, look, Jean! The gulls have found something!" Loll's finger, pointing ahead indicated a cloud of screaming, white-breasted birds that were rising and falling on slate-tipped wings over some object below them. "Let's hurry and see what it is."
But Kobuk was before them. Dashing on ahead he plunged into the melee, frightening the gulls from their find so that they flew shrieking into the air as the girl and her little companion ran up to discover the remains of a large fish on the sand. It was a halibut nearly six feet long. With the exception of the bones but a small portion and the head remained, for the birds had been gorging on it for some time. The flesh, however, looked fresh and firm and white.
Jean regarded it thoughtfully. "If we had nothing else to eat, Lollie, we might eat a fish like this—that is if we got it before the gulls had been at it." In an emergency even a great storm might be made to serve, since its very violence flung up from the deep such fare as this. At any rate, the gulls appreciated it, for even as Loll and Jean stood there, the birds had flown back, settling upon their find, their strong, lemon-colored, crimson-splotched beaks tearing greedily at the flesh. In their eagerness they flew thrillingly close, cold, gold-ringed eyes staring fiercely into the faces of the two, powerful wings fanning their cheeks. Loll, seeing Jean shrink away from an overly bold bird, took her hand and tugged her away from the discordantly screaming mass.
"Gosh, Jean, if those fellows were very hungry and I was alone, I bet they'd take a peck at me!"