JUDIE ON THE RAFT.
"We can enlarge our house with our knives whenever we choose," he said, "and if we stay here long enough, we must make Judie a room for herself under the other tree, with a passage leading from this into it."
Sam said this to avoid saying something which would have alarmed and distressed the others. In truth he knew himself to be really ill, and believed that he would be much worse before being any better. For this reason he knew they must have more room than the present hiding-place afforded, and it was his plan to cut another room under the other tree, with a very narrow passage between. "Then," thought he, "if the Indians find us here, as I am afraid they will, they will find only poor sick Sam here in the outer room, and won't think of hunting further." Sam thought he was going to die at any rate, and his only care now was to save the lives of the others. He had made them gather some mussels at the river, and some green corn in a neighboring field, and he now said to the two boys, "These things must be cooked. It will not do for you to eat them raw any longer. They aren't wholesome that way, and so I've been thinking of a plan for cooking them. The spring is down under the lower bluff, and a fire down there won't make much smoke above the upper banks. We must make one out of drift-wood, but we mustn't use any pine. That smokes too much. The fire must be made in the daytime, because at night it would be seen too far. You boys must do the cooking, while I keep a look-out for Indians, and if any come within sight you can both get in here before they discover you, or if they do see you, they can't find you after you run away from the fire, and they will look for you out in the woods somewhere. Nobody would think of looking here. Now let me tell you how to cook the things. I was at a 'clam bake' in New England once, and I know how to make these mussels and corn taste well. You must dig a sort of fireplace in the sand bank and build your fire in there. When it burns away until you have a good bank of coals, you must put down on them a layer of the corn, in the shuck, then a layer of mussels, then a layer of corn, and finally cover them all up with coals and hot ashes, and leave them there for an hour or two, when they will be cooked beautifully."
"But Mas' Sam," said Joe.
"Well, what is it, Joe?"
"How's we gwine to git de fire?"
"Well, how do you think, Joe?"
"I 'clare I dunno, Mas' Sam, 'thout you got some flints an' punk in your pockets."
"No, I have no flints and no punk, Joe, but I'm going to get you some fire when the sun gets straight overhead."