On those two islands thousands of these “ducks” were nesting.
All of her charges could swim now; even Davie could help himself a little in the water. If only the log did not turn over in the water so easily and often! If that could be remedied, Marian thought they might risk the voyage. She and Delbert could easily steer the craft now. They had picked and chosen among the few poles at their disposal, till they had three that seemed pretty good,—one longish one for poling, two others that served in a fashion as paddles. Jennie and Esther could use them a little.
Then a full week was spent in cutting down banana plants and fixing them in the corral fence so as to release the poles that were in it, and this was the time too when the old canoe was put into the fence.
Those big poles, though not nearly so large as the log, were now laid parallel to it and tightly lashed on, making an extension on each side that would prevent the log rolling over, so that, while they could not ride on it and keep dry, they could at least ride it in safety. They could not now roll the craft up the beach, but it could easily be moored by tying a rope to one of the poles. Good ropes were scarce, though; it had taken the best ones to lash the queer raft together.
Marian’s mind was now fully made up for the venture. They started early. The old barrel was tied on, also the broken demijohn. Fire to cook their dinner with was a question. Marian did not want to risk taking the matches for fear they would get wet by some unlucky accident, so she put a quantity of ashes in the barrel and buried some good half-burned brands in them. And because they did not know for sure whether they would find wood on the “duck islands” or not, they took along a little bundle of sticks too. They had learned that the trunks of the banana plants contain a tough, strong fiber, and they were using this for tying, where short strings were wanted.
Their breakfast consisted of cold boiled cottontail left over from supper and a few small and very inferior bananas. These they ate on the raft after they had started, and they drank from the bottles of water which had also been put into the old barrel. It was not a very ample meal, and they turned longing eyes on the distant islands. It was devoutly to be hoped that food was plenty there.
The sea was very smooth; Marian would not have started if it had not been. The raft was easily paddled along, and she soon lost the few nervous misgivings with which she began the trip, but she also soon decided that she would never make it again till she had studied up some way of putting up a sail. She was quite sure that Clarence would have done it, and it did seem as if it would take forever to get across that stretch of water.
However, they reached their destination before noon, and, drawing their odd craft up on a bit of beach, they took everything ashore and hunted a good place for a fire. Having found one, they carefully drew the embers from their bed of ashes and, with much coaxing and blowing and pulling of handfuls of dried grass, finally got a little blaze started, and then they hung the kettle over it with water to heat for the eggs which they then went to hunt.
THE GROUND WAS COVERED WITH THE ROUGH NESTS