“Not a tooth broken!” he exclaimed with delight. “I’ll dissect out the entire bony structure of the head to-day and make a drawing of it. Then I’m going to pack it carefully in a little box that I’ll whittle out, and present it—if you don’t mind—to young Wentworth. He may perhaps value it as a souvenir of his visit to Quasi.”
Cal assented more than gladly, and the two busied themselves during the next half hour completing their catch of whiting and croakers for breakfast. When they reached the camp the rain Dunbar had predicted had set in.
As soon as breakfast was over Dunbar redeemed his promise to show the boys his lockers.
“I’m going over there now,” he said, “to get some paper, pencils and drawing board. Suppose you go with me, if you want to see some of my woodland devices.”
They assented gladly. They were very curious to see where and how their guest cared for his perishable properties, the more because their own search for the lockers had completely failed.
The matter proved simple enough. Dunbar led them a little way into the woods and then, falling upon his knees, crawled into the end of a huge hollow log. After he had reached the farther end of the hollow part he lighted a little bunch of fat pine splinters to serve as a torch, and invited his companions to look in. They saw that he had scraped away all the decaying wood inside the log, leaving its hard shell as a bare wall. In this he had fitted a number of little wooden hooks, to each of which some of his belongings were suspended.
It was a curious collection. There were cards covered with butterflies, moths and beetles, each impaled upon a large pin. There were the beaks and talons of various birds of prey, each carefully labeled. There were bunches of feathers of various hues, some dried botanical specimens and much else of similar sorts.
From the farther end of the hollow he brought forth several compact little portfolios, each so arranged that no rain could penetrate it when all were bound together and carried like a knapsack.
“I’ll take two of these portfolios with me to your shelter,” he said, taking them under his arm. “One of them contains the writing and drawing materials that I shall need to-day. The other is filled with my drawings of various interesting objects. Some of them may be interesting to you during this rainy day, and each has a description appended which will enable you to understand the meaning of it.”
But the boys had a rather brief time over the drawings that day. They ran through a part of the portfolio while Dunbar was writing, but after an hour he put his writing aside and began dissecting the shark’s head, stopping now and then to make a little sketch of some detail. After that the boys had no eyes but for the work he was doing and no ears but for the things he said.