"And I've been hungry ever since I've been here," he remarked to himself. "I'm half starved this minute."
He was thinking a great deal now of what he should have to eat when he reached home, and planning for this and that. And, oh, for some good hot tea!
And so, thinking, and dreading to go to his cheerless cave, he sat while his fire burned low and the sun sank from sight and the long and gloomy twilight gathered.
"I'll spare another stick or two," he said, replenishing the fire. "I can't go into that hole yet."
The fire blazed up, and the twilight grew thicker, and the fire had nearly burned out again while Bobby, dreaming of home and Mrs. Abel, and wondering where Abel Zachariah and Skipper Ed and Jimmy were, fell into a doze. Then it was that something unlooked for startled him into sudden wakefulness.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE WINTER OF FAMINE
Faintly over the waters, but quite loud enough for Bobby to hear, came a hail, and Bobby was on his feet in an instant, shouting with all the power of his lusty young lungs. Then he ran to his cave and got his gun, and fired three shots at intervals of a few seconds, and with the last shot listened tense with eagerness and excitement.
This was a signal that he and Jimmy had agreed upon. It meant, "Come! I want you," and when at home if Jimmy wished Bobby to come over to Skipper Ed's cabin, or Bobby wished Jimmy to come to Abel Zachariah's cabin, it was the way they called one another. And when the signal was heard, two shots were fired in quick succession to say, "I hear, and I will come," or two shots with an interval between, to say, "I hear you, but I can't come." Then it was the duty of the one who had fired the three shots in the beginning, whether or not his invitation had been accepted, to fire a single shot to say: "I hear you and understand."