"Epicure?"
"That's the chap. I read the other day that the Tartars say he digs his grave with his teeth. I don't want a grave as bad as that yet."
"I suppose that means that a man who lives on too rich food will die by it."
"Yes, I reckon so. But I 'low there's no danger in our case; eh, Aleck? Do you think dried beef and snow-birds too rich for your delicate stomach, my boy?"
That night all bunked down on the floor, for they were too weary to care much for anything but a chance to sleep, and the sun was high before any of them found out, in their shady house, that it was morning. When breakfast was ready, and they had all sat down at the rough shelf-table which the fishermen had fastened at one side of the cabin, Aleck called "Attention!" and said that it was time they were looking the situation squarely in the face.
"It's all very funny," he said, "to think ourselves Crusoes, and feel that we are all right because we have a roof over us and a stove to keep warm by. But Crusoe didn't need a roof nor a stove, for he was in a warm climate; and he had goats and birds, and shell-fish along the rocks, and cocoanuts, and lots of other things. Crusoe was a king in his palace beside us."
The circle of faces grew rather grave.
"Here we are, in midwinter, on an island in a fresh-water lake—and not even water, but solid ice—where there are no oysters nor clams, no fruit-trees, and no animals—"
"Except those dogs," Jim interrupted.