Fortunately, the tarpaulin and heavy sails with which he had covered his heap of stores high up the beach, weighting them down afterward with huge stones, had held. Some water had entered at the edges, but, as the goods were of a kind that could not be damaged much, little harm was done. Again he resolved to preserve all that he had accumulated there, although he did not know that he would have any need of them.
When he rowed back in the dinghy he saw a formidable fin cutting the water again, and, laying down the oars, he took up the rifle which he always carried with him. He watched until the shark was almost on the surface of the water, and then he sent a bullet into it. There was a great splashing, followed by a disappearance, and he did not know just then the effect of his shot, but a little later, when the huge body of the slain fish floated to the surface he felt intense satisfaction, as he believed that it would have been a man-eater had it the chance.
CHAPTER VIII
MAKING THE BEST OF IT
After his return in the dinghy Robert decided that he would have some fresh beef and also a little sport. Although the island contained no indigenous wild animals of any size, there were the wild cattle, and he had seen they were both long of horn and fierce. If he courted peril he might find it in hunting them, and in truth he rather wanted a little risk. There was such an absence of variety in his life, owing to the lack of human companionship, that an attack by a maddened bull, for instance, would add spice to it. The rifle would protect him from any extreme danger.
He knew he was likely to find cattle near the larger lake, and, as he had expected, he saw a herd of almost fifty grazing there on a flat at the eastern edge. Two fierce old bulls with very long, sharp horns were on the outskirts, as if they were mounting guard, while the cows and calves were on the inside near the lake.
Robert felt sure that the animals, although unharried by man, would prove wary. For the sake of sport he hoped that it would be so, and, using all the skill that he had learned in his long association with Willet and Tayoga, he crept down through the woods. The bulls would be too tough, and as he wanted a fat young cow it would be necessary for him to go to the very edge of the thickets that hemmed in the little savanna on which they were grazing.
The wind was blowing from him toward the herd and the bulls very soon took alarm, holding up their heads, sniffing and occasionally shaking their formidable horns. Robert picked a fat young cow in the grass almost at the water's edge as his target, but stopped a little while in order to disarm the suspicion of the wary old guards. When the two went back to their pleasant task of grazing he resumed his cautious advance, keeping the fat young cow always in view.
Now that he had decided to secure fresh beef, he wanted it very badly, and it seemed to him that the cow would fulfill all his wants. A long experience in the wilderness would show him how to prepare juicy and tender steaks. Eager to replenish his larder in so welcome a way, he rose and crept forward once more in the thicket.