"By the way," answered Charley, "we've got to make the pitch. Do you know how, Ned?"
"Not very well," replied Ned, "but I think we can make out."
"I know," said Jack; "I've seen tar made in the North Carolina tar country, and pitch is only boiled tar."
"Very well, then, you shall superintend that job," said Ned; "you know that was our bargain, to make each fellow manage the things he understood best."
"You'd better make a lot of salt, then, right away, beginning to-morrow morning."
"Why? You don't use salt in making pitch, do you?"
"No; but I shall want the big kettle to boil the tar in, and it won't be fit for use as a salt kettle after that."
"Then we must cook up all our rice too," said Charley.
"No, we needn't," said Ned; "it would spoil if we did, and we can cook it, as we need it, in the coffee-pot."
Early the next morning these preparations were begun. Charley got his salt factory at work, Ned worked at the boat, and Jack made preparations for tar-burning. He began by digging a pit about four feet square and two feet deep. Then—at a distance of about a foot—he dug another pit about three feet square and four feet deep. He packed the wall of earth that separated the two pits as firmly as he could, and then, cutting a long joint of cane for a tar pipe, he passed it through this wall, from a point exactly at the bottom of the shallow pit. He inclined it downward a little, so that the tar might easily run though it and fall into the deeper pit.