Phil and Serge had never been there before, but Jalap Coombs had, though only in the night-time, and he pointed out the ruin that stood nearest the beach as the one containing the cache of seal-skins.
They did not visit it, but searched among the others for one suited to their purpose. At length they found an old barrabkie, or primitive Aleut hut, three walls of which were still standing, though the other wall and the roof had fallen in, filling the interior with a confused mass of rubbish.
“My! what a dismal-looking place!” exclaimed Phil, with a shiver. “If it wasn’t for this terrible wind that seems to blow right through me, I’d rather take my chances outside.”
“Wait till we get through with it, lad, afore ye pass jedgment,” said Jalap Coombs. “I never see a place yet so dismal but what a couple of live Yankees like me and you, one of which is likewise a subjeck, couldn’t knock the dismalness out of. Now, Serge, my boy, ef ye’ll only go ahead with that fire scheme of your’n, the rest of us’ll overhaul this shebang, and see ef we can’t make it a little more ship-shape.”
So Serge departed on his self-imposed mission, while the others began a vigorous cleaning out of the old barrabkie.
The floor of this ancient habitation, which was of the same style as those built by many Aleuts of to-day, was of hard-packed earth, and was sunk about four feet below the level of the surrounding surface. A stout frame of whale ribs standing about six feet high had been erected and enclosed in a wall two feet thick of tough, peaty sods. This in turn had been protected by an outer wall of loose rocks, while the whole had at one time been roofed with whalebone rafters and a thick thatch of the heavy sedge-grass that grows on all those islands.
For an hour Phil and the mate worked like beavers to clear this place of its ruinous litter. Then they returned to the beach and brought up everything that had been saved from the wrecked boat, including, of course, its sail. This with great difficulty, on account of the high wind, they fashioned into a sort of a tent roof, supported by oars, over one end of the barrabkie. This being finished to their satisfaction, the mate went to the beach for drift-wood in anticipation of their promised fire, while Phil gathered a quantity of sphagnum moss, which he spread thickly over the earthen floor of their shelter.
While the latter was wondering what he should do next, and what had become of Serge, and if any one else had ever been so hungry as he without the slightest prospect of supper, Jalap Coombs appeared staggering beneath an immense load of drift-wood, and greatly excited.
“Come, lad,” he cried, as he seized the long-handled steel gaff, “let’s go fishing. We may have to eat ’em raw, for I don’t see any sign of Serge or his fire. But even that’ll be better than starving.”