“I guess we could do it that way all right. So let’s go back now and braid palm-leaf ropes the rest of to-day, so as to have plenty to tie the wood with, and hunt up some nice poles and paddles; and to-morrow early we will come and take this gallant bark round into harbor.”
So they beached it again, and piled stones in it so it could not get away, and then went back to the home end of the Island.
Mexicans make a very good rope of twisted palm-leaves, but our islanders had not learned how yet, and so braided them instead, for even the children could do that. For a large rope they simply took three of the small ones and braided them together. The finished articles were very knobby, uneven affairs, of course, and could not be used to lasso with, but they were flexible and strong and served to tie things. They had quite a number of these ropes of home manufacture.
In the morning, after attending to the burro and eating a breakfast of fish baked in the hot coals, they filled the two big bottles and three of the little ones with water, tied stout little palm-leaf strings to them, so that each person could easily carry one, and started out with their ropes and poles.
Marian had Mr. Cunningham’s pail with more fish for their dinner, and the hatchet also, and Davie as usual flourished the dig-spoon. He soon got tired of carrying his bottle of water and passed it over to Marian, who put it into the pail.
At the cove they put the pail and their bottles into a clump of mango bushes and began to gather up the best and biggest of the wood. Marian made compact bundles of it and lashed them as best she could to what remained of the old canoe. Alone it would not stay in any position that made it navigable, but reinforced by the bundles of wood on what Delbert called the “absent” side of the craft, it floated as any other mass of wooden wreckage would have floated and maintained an equilibrium which allowed the children to perch on top in safety.
Delbert scratched his head.
“This isn’t a canoe and it isn’t a raft. What in creation is it, anyway, Marian?”
“I reckon it’s a float,” she answered.
So, after the pail had been placed on the safest spot, where it would not get water splashed into it, and after Jennie had received explicit instructions to watch over it, the voyage began. They had taken the precaution to put on their bathing-suits and expected to do as much wading and swimming as anything else.