The only way out of it he could see was to fix the boat and go on down the river that way, but he hadn’t anything to fix it with. He didn’t even know how badly smashed it was. We could haul it out on shore, of course, and find that out, but a shore like that island made Mark prefer to sit in the boat and figure out some other scheme. Even though it was my boat that was smashed, I felt the same way about it.
“Sammy hungry—Sammy very hungry.”
Through the dusk we could see him rubbing his stomach and looking bothered.
“So am I,” says Mark, “but I guess I’m goin’ to stay that way. We can’t eat the b-b-boat.”
“Maybe catch fish. Got bait, got line, eh? Fish in river.”
“That’s all right, but how you goin’ to git there to fish for ’em?”
“Sammy dunno. Maybe swim, eh? Maybe git out on island. Maybe git ’em somehow. Sammy very hungry.”
“And cold, too, I expect. I know I am. Ugh-h-h!”
“Go ’shore and make fire. Sammy fix so men can’t see. Sammy will. Then catch fish, eh?”
“S-s-snakes,” said Mark.