But Tom and Dick were full of enthusiasm, now that they had at last got to Quasi, and they had both tasted the water of the spring. Its flavor strongly stimulated their eagerness for something more palatable.
“Why not begin the well now—as soon as we get the things up from the boat?” asked Dick. “There’ll be a moon nearly full, and the sea breeze here is cool. I for one am ready to dig till midnight.”
“I’ll dig all night,” said Tom, “rather than take another swig of that stuff. If we work hard we can get the well in commission before we use all the water left in the kegs.”
“We sha’n’t have to dig all night,” said Cal. “I’ll pick out a place where we needn’t go down more than eight or nine feet, and this sandy earth is easily handled. If we’re really industrious and don’t waste more time over supper than we must, we’ll strike water within a few hours, and it’ll be settled and clear by morning. But we must hustle if we’re to do that. So load yourselves up while I pick out a camp and I’ll join the caravan of carriers in the next load.”
It was necessary, of course, to remove everything from the boat to the bivouac, as it was the purpose of the company to make this their headquarters for several weeks to come, or at least for as long as they liked.
It was nearly sunset, therefore, when that part of the work was done, and it was decreed that Larry should get supper while the rest worked at well-digging.
As there remained no fresh meat among their stores, Larry’s first task was to go out with his gun in search of game. Squirrels were abundant all about the place, and very easily shot, as they had never been hunted. As the time was short, Larry contented himself with the killing of a dozen or so of the fat rodents, suppressing for the time being his strong impulse to go after game of a more elusive and therefore more aristocratic sort. He did indeed take one shot at a flock of rice birds, killing a good many of them, but mutilating their tender little butter-balls of bodies because he used bird shot instead of the “mustard seed” size, which alone is fit for rice-bird shooting.
On his return to the bivouac to cook his game, he found the well already sunk to nearly half the required depth, and by the time he was ready to bid his comrades cease their work and come to supper, at least another foot had been added to its depth.
The work was easy, not only because the sandy soil was easily shoveled out without the use of picks or spades, but because of the form Cal’s observation of other temporary well digging had taught him to give to the excavation.
“We’re not really digging a well,” he explained at the outset. “We’re only scooping out a basin in order to get to water. So instead of working in a narrow hole, we’ll take a bowl for our model—a bowl eight or ten feet across at the top and growing rapidly narrower as we go down. Working in that way, we’ll not only get on faster and with less labor, but we’ll spare ourselves the necessity of cribbing up the sides of our water hole to keep them from falling in. Besides, the farther down we get the less work each additional foot of digging will cost us.”