“Well,” said Phonny, “I will look about and find a good place.”
Accordingly, he began to walk along at the foot of the precipice, examining every recess among the rocks, and all the nooks and corners which seemed to promise well, as places of encampment. Malleville could not quite keep up with him on account of the roughnesses and inequalities of the way.
At last Malleville, who had fallen a little behind, heard Phonny calling to her in tones of great delight. She hastened on. In a moment she saw Phonny before her just coming out from among the bushes and calling to her,
“Malleville! Malleville! come here quick!—I have found a cavern.”
Malleville went on, and presently she came in view of what Phonny called a cavern. It was a place where two immense fragments of rock leaned over toward each other, so as to form a sort of roof, beneath which was an inclosure which Phonny called a cavern. He might perhaps have more properly called it a grotto. There was a great flat stone at the bottom of the cavern, which made an excellent floor, and there was an open place in the top behind, where Phonny thought that the smoke would go out if he should make a fire.
“There, Malleville,” said Phonny, when she came where she could see the cavern, “that is what I call a discovery. We will play that we are savages, and that we live in a cavern.”
Phonny rolled two large stones into the cavern, and placed them in the back part of it, where he intended to build his fire. These stones were for andirons. Then he began to bring in logs, and sticks, and branches of trees, such as he found lying upon the ground dead and dry. These he piled up inside of the cavern in a sort of corner, where there was a deep recess or crevice, which was very convenient for holding the wood.
Malleville helped him do all this. When a sufficient supply of wood was gathered, Phonny laid some of it across his stone andirons, and then prepared to light the fire.
He rubbed one of his matches against a dry log, and the match immediately kindled. Phonny looked at the blue flame a moment, and then, as if some sudden thought had struck him, he blew it out again, and said,
“On the whole, I will go and ask Beechnut. We may as well be sure.”