“Say! can’t you fellows get busy and collect some materials for a fire, dry chips and pine-splinters—fat pine-splinters—and dead branches? There’s plenty of good fuel around! You wood-finders’ll have a cinch! ”
It certainly was a signal act of faith in Colin and Coombsie when they bestirred their weary limbs to obey this command from the wizard who was to try and evoke the mysterious fire-element latent in the combustible wood he handled, but hard to get at without the aids which civilization places at man’s disposal.
They each kept a corner of their inquisitive eyes upon him while they collected the fuel, watching the shaping of the notched fireboard, of the upright pointed drill, over a dozen inches in length, and the construction of a rude bow out of a supple stick found on the clearing, with Colin’s cowhide shoe-lace made fast to each end as the cord or strap that bent the bow.
This cord was twisted once round the upper part of the drill whose lower point fitted into the shallow hole in the fireboard.
“Whew! I must find a piece of pine-wood with a knot in it and scoop that knot out, so that it will form a disc for the top of the drill in which it will turn easily,” said the perspiring scout. “Oh, sugarloons! I’ve forgotten all about the tinder; we may have to trot a long way into the woods to find a cedar-tree.”
“I’ll go with you, Nix,” proffered Marcoo, while Leon, lying on the ground near the cave, with his dog pressing close to him, undertook the task of scooping that soft knot out of the pine-disk.
“All right; bring along the tin mug out of your basket; perhaps we may find water!”
And they did! Oh, blessed find! Wearily they trudged back about sixty yards into the woods, in an opposite direction from that in which they had traveled before—Nixon taking the precaution of breaking off a twig from every second or third tree so as to mark the trail—before they lit on a grove of young cedars through which ran a sound, now a purling sob, now a tinkling laugh; softer, more angel-like, than the wind’s mirth!
“Water! A spring! Oh—tooraloo!” And they drank their fill, bringing back, along with the cedar-wood for tinder—water, as much as their tin vessel would hold, for the two boys and dog keeping watch over the fire-sticks on the old bear’s camping-ground.
The soft cedar was shredded into tinder between two stones. The drill was set up with its lower point resting in the notched hole of the fire-board, its upper point fitting into the pine-disk which Nixon steadied with his hand.