“And if we knew how,” added Jesse. “It seems to me the best thing we can do, the way things are, is to go egg-hunting as Rob suggests.”
There was perhaps more wisdom in Rob’s plan than any one of the boys knew at first. He was old and wise enough to know that the best way to keep them all from homesickness was to be busy all the time. This discovery is not new among military men, or those who lead exploring parties, although it was one which Rob thought out for himself; so now he went on:
“We’ll just take the dory,” he said, “and slip down the coast beyond the mouth of the creek, and so on beyond the rocks where Jimmy and we all went when we got the sea-parrot hides. There are rocks over there, tall needles with straight sides, that have got thousands of birds of all sorts on them.”
“What will we do with our eagles?” asked Jesse, hesitating.
“We can leave them plenty of food, and put a few boards together so that they can get under in case the crows or ravens should attack them. They will get along all right, I am sure.”
“I’d like to go with Skookie in the bidarka,” said John, but Rob shook his head.
“No, you don’t,” he said, “you go in the dory with the rest of us. That boy is all right, but he might not be strong enough to handle a bidarka in a high sea; and up here we never can tell when the wind is going to come up.”
“Suppose it did upset,” said John, sturdily. “I have been out of it, here in the lagoon.”
“Yes, but that is different from getting upset out there in the middle of the bay. You know perfectly well that you could not get back in again; and swimming out there is something different from the lagoon, where the bank is right at hand all the time. I don’t even like to go very far out in the dory; but see, it is fair and calm just now. So hurry up and let’s get away. Get all the rope you can, too, fellows, because we may have to go down the face of the rock to get at the nests.”
“I have seen pictures of that,” said Jesse—“how the egg-gatherers go down in a rope handled by other men up above them on the rocks. Do you suppose that three of us could pull the other fellow up and down? Skookie here looks pretty strong.”