“See that? Told you I could spear fish! But they all want to hide back there in the cave. I tell you, Marian, I’ll go in there and drive them out, and you can stand here and spear them. We’ll just keep spearing and spearing till the tide comes in and the rest get away. I bet we can get enough for several days. We can dry ’em as the Mexicans do.”
He handed her the spear and began hastily to disrobe. Delbert’s movements were always hasty.
Marian began casting the spear unsuccessfully, but when Delbert got into the pool he created such a commotion that several of the fish in their wild endeavor to escape, flopped clear out on the bare rocks and were easily captured. By that time a better idea had come to Marian.
MARIAN HAD BEEN CASTING THE SPEAR UNSUCCESSFULLY WHEN DELBERT GOT INTO THE POOL
“O Delbert,” she cried, “come out now, wipe up on my apron and get back into your clothes. We have enough for breakfast and dinner, too.”
“Oh, but we want all we can get,” he called back. “We can dry ’em, I tell you, and as soon as the tide is high again they will all get away.”
“That’s all right, but listen! I have a scheme for keeping them all. This is too good a thing to let the tide take away from us. Why, there must be fish enough in there to last us a week at least, maybe two. See, Delbert, we must build some kind of a fence across, so they can’t get away when high tide does come. Then we can come every day and get what we want till they are all gone.”
Delbert splashed right out without more remarks.
“We can do it with rocks and sticks and brush,” she continued. “It won’t be possible to drive stakes in the ground here, because it isn’t ground,—it is all rock,—but we can make them stand firm by piling rocks around them.”