After a careful survey he stood up and beckoned Dave to come on.
“Some cove’s been doin’ a bit of cultivating an’ give it up,” he explained.
“It’s an all-right slab house,” cried Dave, exploring round. “Got a chimney in the kitchen an’ a old Colonial oven, set on bricks. It’s an all-right oven only the bottom’s burned out of it.”
“Yes,” said Tom, “an’ there’s two good rooms; they’ve left a table an’ a couple of stools. I say, we’ll take possession of this place.”
“Hooray!” cried Dave, capering round the earthen floor. “I’m on.”
“I reckon it’s all right,” said Tom, enthusiastically. “We’ll call it the Pirates’ Camp. I reckon we could stay ’ere twelve months an’ nobody would find us.”
“There ought to be a well round somewhere,” remarked Dave, “that we can get fresh water out of.”
“Let’s go an’ see,” shouted Tom. “This is all-right. I reckon if we ’ad a gun we could use the cracks in the slabs for loop holes and stand a siege.”
“What’s a siege?” asked Dave, whose education had been neglected.
“It’s this way,” explained Tom, sitting on the kitchen table (which consisted of the top of a packing case nailed at the corners to four stakes driven into the ground), “a siege is like this. When one side takes up a position—”