"Now, then, Mr. Hardwicke, the floor of your lower house is quite dry, and I think it will be safe to move back again. Will you have your breakfast first, or will you wait until you get back home again before eating anything?"
"Oh, let's wait, by all means, and eat breakfast in the dear old root-fortress," said Tom, and as Sam made no objection, it was so arranged.
By nine o'clock the moss carpet was laid in the root-fortress and the little party was back in its old quarters again. The vacant corner which had been Joe's, reminded them sadly of his disappearance. Poor fellow! they had learned to love him almost as a brother, and they could not think of him now without tears. When three people sit down with a silent grief, their conversation is very apt to be lively, or, if they cannot quite accomplish that, they are sure to talk only of indifferent matters, and so it was in the present case. Judie was the first to break the silence which had fallen upon all.
"Tom," she said playfully, "I'm afraid you're not a good provider. Here we are, hungry as wolves, and you haven't brought us a mite of anything to eat. You've moved everything but the provisions, and you've forgotten them entirely."
Master Tom admitted the grievousness of his fault and returned at once to the drift cavern after the forgotten provision pack. The bread, as they all knew, was long ago exhausted, but plenty of meat remained, and this Tom presently brought. When he opened the pack a disagreeable odor spread itself at once over the little room.
"Phew! what's that?" said Tom, and putting his nose to the meat, he looked up in blank consternation, saying:
"The meat is spoiled, Sam! What on earth shall we do?"
The case was an alarming one certainly. They were hungry, and Sam, whose returning health had brought with it a ravenous appetite, was particularly so. He needed wholesome, nourishing food now more than anything else, as he knew.
"Well," he said, after thinking the matter over, "it can't be helped. There's nothing for it but to fall back on sweet potatoes till I get strong enough to go hunting. You must go to the potato field Tom, and bring some."
There had been but one field of corn in the neighborhood at first, and the various parties of Indians who had camped in its vicinity had long ago carried away the last ear of corn from that, as the boys knew very well. The river was altogether too high now for mussels to be got, and so the sweet potatoes in a field half a mile away, were their only resource.