“That’s what we’ve got to hope for,” says Mark. “The main thing right now is to keep off the Japanese till Mr. Ames does come. Three days is a l-long time.”
“Yes,” says I, “but it would be a heap longer if we didn’t have plenty of grub.”
“’Tis supper-time,” says Binney. “Come on.”
Well, sir, five minutes after that you could have bought the whole crowd for a cent with a hole in it. We got everything ready to cook and fixed wood and kindling for the fire—and nobody had a match. We searched our pockets and turned them inside out. Then we rummaged through everything we had brought over to the citadel from the hotel; and as a last resort we scoured the whole citadel to see if somebody hadn’t left one laying around by accident. But there wasn’t a match.
“No coffee,” says Binney.
“Coffee!” grunted Mark. “What’s worryin’ me is no f-fires to-night. We might peg along somehow with the grub we’ve got, but we can’t get along without fire to-night.”
“Might make fire like the savages do,” says I. “Take a stick with a point to it and whirl it around in a hole in another stick.”
“If I was wrecked on a d-d-desert island,” says Mark, “and there wasn’t any other way, I might try that. Probably it’d take a day’s fussin’ to get the things fixed just right so’s they’d work. No, there’s a b-better way than that.”
“What is it?” says I.
“Go get the box of m-matches on the kitchen shelf in the hotel.”