“The bacon is all right,” returned Pierre. “When you got tired of living on that you can catch a wild duck.”
“By putting salt on its tail, I suppose,” interrupted Chase. “I don’t see how else I am to catch it.”
“Take this lantern and axe and look around and find something to start a fire with,” continued Pierre. “We’ll have to stay here with you until the wind goes down, because we can’t beat up against it in the pirogue. Even if we could, I wouldn’t try it. I’ve seen enough of the Gulf for one night.”
“I believe you,” said Chase to himself. “If I can make things work to my satisfaction you’ll never sail that pirogue back to the village. As soon as you are asleep I’ll run her around under the lee of the island, and stay there until the wind goes down and the sea falls, and then I’ll fill away for home. If I can’t do that, I’ll take possession of the eatables, knock a hole in the pirogue, and get out of your way by intrenching myself in the ‘Kitchen.’ By doing that I can make prisoners of you and your father as effectually as though you were bound hand and foot.”
Chase was so highly elated over his plans for turning the tables upon his captors, and so sure that one or the other of them would operate successfully, that he allowed a smile to break over his face. Pierre saw it, and interpreted it rightly. It put an idea into his head, and he determined to watch Chase as closely now as he had done before.
“I want to ask you a question,” said Pierre, while Chase was trying to light the lantern with some damp matches Coulte had given him. “Did those fellows we had the fight with at the log know that we were going to take you to this island?”
“Of course they did; Wilson told them. He was there with them, because I heard his voice. They’ll come over here with an officer or two as soon as the wind dies away a little, and they will be looking for you as well as for me. What good will it do you now that you have brought me here? It seems to me that by doing it you have made your situation worse instead of better. You are prisoners here the same as I am.”
Chase knew by the expression which settled on his face that he had started a train of serious reflections in Pierre’s mind. Leaving him to follow them out at his leisure he picked up the lantern, shouldered the axe, and after looking about among the bushes for a few minutes, found a dry log from which he cut an armful of chips with which to start the fire. He worked industriously, and by the time that the old Frenchman and his son had unloaded the pirogue and hauled her out upon the beach, he had a roaring fire going, and a comfortable camp made behind a projecting point of one of the bluffs. He then returned to the canoe to bring up the blankets belonging to the outfit with which Pierre had provided him; and when he had spread them and his coats out in front of the fire to dry, he went to work to cook his supper and prepare his bed. Neither of these duties occupied a great deal of time. All he had in the way of eatables was the bacon, a few slices of which he cut off and laid upon the coals; and for a bed he scraped together a few armfuls of leaves, and deposited them at the roots of a wide-spreading beech which extended its limbs protectingly over the camping-ground. When Pierre and his father came up he was sitting before the fire in his shirt sleeves, turning his bacon with a sharp stick.
“What made you locate the camp so far away from the boat?” asked the former, looking suspiciously at his prisoner.
“Why, you don’t want to watch her all night, do you? I selected this point because it is sheltered from the wind. Don’t you think it a good idea? If you want any supper help yourselves; only touch that bacon lightly, for it is all I shall have to eat until I see home again.”