His first impulse was to cry, and then he checked himself resolutely as he said:
“Look here, Ned, it won’t do at all. I don’t remember that you’ve ever been in quite as hard a scrape as this; but I’m certain you know what it is to be hungry, and this island ain’t half as tough as runnin’ ’round Jonesboro hearin’ the folks say you are bound to come to some wicked end. You’re pretty near as bad off as Robinson Crusoe, an’ yet he come around all right.”
Then Ned regretted not having read the book more carefully when Frank Hubbard loaned it to him, because if he had done so he might the better have been able to decide upon his future course.
Rising to his feet and mechanically plunging his hands in his pockets, he became aware of the fish-lines, and with this very pleasant remembrance came the thought that Mr. Stout had given him these few articles with the kindly hope that he might prolong his life.
“Perhaps he didn’t dare to do any more while the captain was watching. Anyway, I oughter be able to catch some fish if I can find bait, and with what matches I have got there won’t be much trouble about building a fire.”
The mere fact that he knew what to do seemed to give him no slight amount of mental relief, and he started at a rapid pace for the tiny bay which ran up into the grove.
“There will be fish in that place if anywhere, and after breakfast I reckon it won’t be such a very hard job to rig up some kind of a shanty,” he said to himself as he walked along, keeping a sharp lookout meanwhile over the surrounding waters in the hope of seeing a sail.
There was not a craft of any kind in sight, and if he had known exactly the position of Spider Key, he would have understood that his chances of seeing a vessel were very slight.
On arriving at the shore of the bay his first work was to dig in the sand for worms, as he would have done at Jonesboro; but on reaching the foundation coral without finding other form of life than fleas, he gave it up as a bad job.
Then he walked around the beach until he found what looked like mussels, and breaking the shell of one of these soon had his hook baited.