“Speaking of fire,” remarked Jalap Coombs, as he ruefully withdrew the shattered remains of what had been a water-tight match-box from his pocket, “I hope you boys have got some dry matches with ye, for mine are all spiled.”
As neither of them had any matches, the mate’s face grew very sober; but he brightened as Serge remarked, confidently, “If you will provide food, Mr. Coombs, I will promise you the fire to cook it with, unless all the stories I have heard of this island are false.”
“Good for you, lad! Fire’s one of the most important things; but I must say I don’t see how you’re going to get it, unless ye mean to climb to the top of yon smoking mountain.”
“I don’t believe I shall have to go quite as far as that,” replied Serge, “but I’ll get it, and the question is where will you have it put. Do you know what part of the island we have landed on, or where the seal-skin cache is?”
“I do,” answered Phil; “for I recognize that far point with the ugly-looking water just beyond.”
“Right you are, lad,” said Jalap Coombs. “It was just to the east’ard of this very place we landed the skins, and the cache isn’t more’n half a mile away from where we stand. You’re right in calling that ‘ugly’ water too, for it’s the beginning of Krenitzin Strait, as nasty a bit of roaring tide-rip and eddy, rock and reef, as ye’ll find on the coast. It’s God’s marcy that we warn’t flung in there instead of on to this beach. Ef we had been, we wouldn’t have stood no more show than a butterfly in a whirlwind.”
[CHAPTER XX]
BRIMSTONE AND FEATHERS
While they talked, the three drenched and shivering castaways walked briskly up the beach, through a broad belt of golden-green moss, crossed a little stream of fresh water, from which they drank eagerly, and finally reached a wind-swept plateau overlooking both the sea and the mad waters of Krenitzin Strait. Here they found the ruins of many ancient dwellings huddled closely together, and marking the site of a once populous Aleutian settlement. Although the mate and the two lads knew that Oonimak Island had not been inhabited for many years, they could not help expecting to see human forms emerge from some of the ancient dwellings, and fancying that in the shriek of the wind over the roofless structures they heard despairing human voices.