“I wish we had brought your carriage, Fritz,” said Eric, alluding to the wheelbarrow, which had been so styled by the sailor lad after he had utilised it as an ambulance waggon.
“It’s too late to wish that now,” replied the other.
“I could soon go round in the boat and fetch it, brother,” cried Eric, looking as if he were going to start off at the moment.
“No, stop, laddie; we could not spare the boat,” said Fritz, laying his hand on his arm. “It would be more than likely that, the moment you were out of sight the seals would land again on the rocks, when we should miss the chance of taking them! I don’t believe we shall have more than one other chance of getting their skins; for the Tristaners will soon be here again on their annual excursion, with that fellow Slater in their company, and, I confess, I should not like us to be here when they came.”
“I wouldn’t mind a row at all!” cried Eric defiantly; “still, as you don’t want me to go for the wheelbarrow, how do you suggest that we should carry the skins across this dreary expanse here?”
“Let us make a stretcher with the oars,” said Fritz.
“Bravo, the very thing,” replied Eric. “Why, you are the inventive genius this time!”
“Well, one must think of something sometimes,” said Fritz, in his matter-of-fact way; and the two then proceeded to carry out the plan of the elder brother, which simplified their labour immensely. They only had to make some three journeys across the plateau with the skins, which, when the bundles were all transported to the eastern side of the tableland, were incontinently tumbled over to the foot of the cliff below, alighting quite close to the cauldron in which the blubber would be subsequently “tried out” into oil.
Then, and not till then, did they pick up their guns and think of the goats, which had hitherto led a charmed life as far as they were concerned.
They soon noticed, however, that, in lieu of the large number they had observed when they last saw them, the flock had been now reduced to five. The Tristaners must evidently have paid another visit to the west coast since they had met them there when going sealing the previous season; and, this second visit the brothers put down to the instigation of the whilom “deck hand,” who had no doubt incited the islanders to do everything they could to annoy them.