The Ojibwa nodded in assent. “Many tales are told,” he replied solemnly, “but they are only tales. No man knows.”
“There is one thing certain,” said Ronald the practical, “we can’t find out what that land is until we cross to it, and we can’t cross until we have a craft of some kind.”
“And even though we had the best of canoes,” Jean added, “we could not go through this sea.”
“Then ’tis something to eat we must be seeking first,” the younger boy responded. “I’m hungry indeed, but not quite ready to eat gull, until we see if we can find other food.”
All efforts to obtain anything else eatable failed Fishing from the rocks, even in those patches quiet water that were sheltered from wind and waves, brought no result. Nothing edible grew on the island but a few blueberries and bearberries, and the gulls had stripped the plants of their fruit. The castaways had to eat bark, leaves and roots, or try the flesh of the gulls.
They attempted to capture some of the young gulls by creeping up on them and seizing them or striking them with a canoe paddle, but all the young were full grown, able to swim and fly, and were so shy and wary that not even Nangotook succeeded in killing one. Snaring was equally unsuccessful, and some of the precious ammunition had to be sacrificed. Ronald was the best shot of the three, so the hunting was entrusted to him. Every time he fired, the birds rose from the rocks in a screaming cloud of gray and white, but he was fortunate enough to secure several. He shot young gulls, thinking they would be tenderer than the old.
The birds were plucked, cut up and boiled, and the two hungry boys and the Indian devoured every bit of the strong, fishy tasting meat. Their uninviting meal down, they set about constructing some kind of a craft to take them away from the island when the waves should go down. The trees were all small and unsuitable for canoe making. The best the three could do was to build a raft. They felled the straightest of the little trees, trimmed them of their branches, and bound them together with tough roots and strips of bark. So much of the growth on the exposed rock was stunted and twisted by the winds, that straight trunks were few. The harsh cries of the gulls seemed to mock at their efforts, but they finished their task at last, just as the sun was setting. Though the raft was small, rough and very imperfect, they believed it would hold them up and enable them to reach the distant shore in calm weather.
They had decided to make directly for that shore. The other islands and islets, visible from the one where they were stranded, appeared to be mere heaps of wind and wave-swept rock. It seemed unlikely that any sand whatever was to be found on the and the danger of trying to coast such rock piles in a clumsy raft was too great to be risked. If the gold-seekers could but reach a forested shore, where they could build another canoe, they might return and explore every island, but they must have a good boat first.