Not long before a sloop had been wrecked upon the southwest corner of the island, and though no lives were lost, the vessel itself had been so injured that there had been no attempt to repair or remove it.
In coasting near the island Robert had often thought he would like to examine the wreck, but he never had done so. It struck him now that he had a capital opportunity to view it at his leisure. Of leisure, unfortunately, he had too much on his hands.
There was a patch of sand at the corner where the sloop had run ashore and the frame of the vessel had imbedded in it. A portion had been swept away, but a considerable part still remained.
Robert clambered down and began to make an examination of the stranded vessel.
“I suppose it belongs to me if I choose to claim it,” he said to himself. “At any rate, no one else is likely to dispute my claim. Wouldn’t it be jolly if I could find a keg of gold pieces hidden somewhere about the old wreck? That would keep aunt and me for years and we wouldn’t feel any anxiety about support.”
This was very pleasant to think about certainly, but kegs of gold pieces are not often carried on sloops nowadays, as Robert very well knew.
The chief use the old wreck was likely to be to him was in affording materials for a raft by which he might find his way to the mainland.
Our hero made a critical survey of the wreck and tried to pull it apart. This was not easy, but finally he was enabled to detach a few planks.
“If I only had a saw, a hammer and some nails,” he thought, “I could build a raft without much difficulty. But I don’t see how I am going to get along without these.”
For the hammer he soon found a substitute in a hard rock of moderate size. There were nails, but they were not easy to extricate from the planks. As to a saw, there was no hope of getting one or anything that would answer the purpose of one.