“O Marian, here is a sort of a crack; maybe it would do.”
She scrambled over the intervening rocks and surveyed the “crack,” and though it was far from being what she wanted, she saw at once that it was the best place they had yet found.
It might, perhaps, have been called a miniature cave. It was not high enough to stand up in, but extended back some ten or twelve feet, growing smaller and smaller, till at its extreme end it was not more than a foot in height. Its width was about the same as its depth. A few feet away from the opening rose another rock, a smooth-faced, gigantic mass that would keep the worst of the wind and rain away from the mouth of the cave, or crack, as Delbert called it.
“I believe it is the best we can do,” she said. “We could at least keep dry and warm in there. All the other places would be good only in good weather. We’ll get some sticks and poke around and see if there are any snakes or anything.”
Delbert promptly followed the suggestion. He crept in and punched and poked most industriously and raked and scraped with energy, but could start nothing, and he declared there did not seem to be any cracks leading any farther back.
“That’s all right, then,” said Marian. “I didn’t want to dispute the right of way with any snakes or centipedes. Now we’d better go down to the bananas and get a lot of dried banana leaves to help out our bed.”
This they did, gathering an enormous bundle and tying it with the lariat rope. Then Marian slung it over her shoulder and so with a very little assistance conveyed it to the Cave.
By this time it was getting late in the afternoon. The sun had disappeared completely from the gray sky, and the wind had risen so that there was no doubt at all about the approach of a storm.
“We must bring everything up,” decided Marian. “Everything must come under shelter here right away. We must not leave even the dig-spoon down on the beach.” She was seized with a nervous dread of the water, which was already rolling in higher than usual.
The little feet got tired of going up and down the rocky hillside, but Marian and Delbert persevered till everything, even the wood they had gathered, was safe at the Cave. Then Marian arranged things as best she could for the night. She packed their belongings, so that they would be some shelter for the bed of banana leaves and blessed Bobbie’s mother for the big cape, which, with Jennie’s pinned to it, would serve as a third blanket. Then she built a fire back of the big rock that sheltered the mouth of their cave bedroom, and cooked the clams for their supper.