Then, throwing down the fragment of watch-chain with all its charms, except the fur-seal’s tooth, attached, he cast a contemptuous glance at the clerks, and strode by them and out of the store, before they could make up their minds whether to hustle him or not.
When Phil related this incident to Serge, the latter chided him for venturing into the “lion’s den,” as he called it, without taking him along.
“But it was my quarrel and not yours,” answered the Yankee lad.
“Phil, you know better than to say that. In a friendship that has been cemented as ours has, by the sharing of dangers and pleasures, joys and sorrows, starvation and plenty, one cannot have a quarrel nor a trouble that does not belong equally to the other. That is what I take to be the very meaning of the word friendship.”
“Right you are, old man! and I won’t do so again. As it was, I came out of it unharmed; and now that we have recovered the fur-seal’s tooth, luck, according to your belief, must be on our side.”
Soon after this, depredations on the camp having almost entirely ceased, Gerald Hamer relieved our lads from guard duty, and set them to collecting drift-wood on the beach, to be cut up and used as fuel under the boiler of the new steamboat, the Chimo, as she had been christened at her launching.
As all the drift in the vicinity of St. Michaels had been gathered up for use in that fort, Phil and Serge were compelled to go long distances up the beach, gather what logs they could find into rafts, and pole them to the camp. After three of such rafts had been successfully landed, they went one day several miles from camp for the one more that would be necessary to complete their stock of fuel.
They worked hard all day at the collecting of this, and, at length, shortly before sunset, had made ready a larger raft than usual. They were in great haste, for they feared darkness might overtake them before they reached camp. Finally, Serge, who stood on the forward or outer end of the raft, push-pole in hand, called out to Phil, who had on long wading-boots, to shove off.
Into that shove Phil threw all his strength, so that the mass of logs had gathered good headway by the time the deepening water compelled him to scramble on board. He sat still for a minute, or until the raft was nearly one hundred yards from shore, to recover his breath. Then he suddenly sprang to his feet, crying “Stop her, Serge! stop her! I have left my pole on shore.”