A CAMP-FACTORY.
Breakfast was finished before daylight that morning, and when it was over the three companions resumed work upon their fortification. Ned stopped long enough to catch some shrimps for dinner, but with that exception there was no break at all in the morning's work, and dinner-time found the boys tired as well as hungry. The afternoon was spent quite as industriously, and when night came the fort, though still incomplete, was well advanced toward security.
"Now," said Ned, when supper-time came, "we have had rather too much of shrimps, I think, and of oysters too. I'm going out with the net to-night to catch some fish for to-morrow. What do you two propose to do?"
"I'm going to make some more clubs," said Charley. "We've something like a fort now, and the next thing is to provide an abundance of ammunition."
"By the way," said Ned, "why can't we make some better arms?"
"Of what sort?" asked Jack.
"Well, bows and arrows, for example. We can make arrow-heads out of some of our copper bolts, and they are weapons not to be despised—what are you smiling at, Charley?"
"Oh! nothing; I was only wondering what good bows and arrows would do without bowstrings."
Ned's countenance fell; then he joined in the smile of his companions, and admitted that his little plan had been very imperfectly worked out in his head.
"I might make some blow-guns out of the canes," he said, "but they're not worth making. I have killed birds with them, but I've tried them thoroughly and they won't shoot hard enough to drive an arrow-head half an inch into a pine plank; so they would be worthless for our purposes."