We found that our ducks and geese had grown so wild that they would not come near us; so, while my wife and I went to pick up such things as we thought we might take back with us, Ernest and Fritz were sent to catch them, and to tie their legs and wings, and in this way we got them at last to The Nest.
CHAPTER VIII.
IT took the whole of the next day to make a sledge, to which we tied the ass, and drove to Tent House. On our sledge we put such of the casks which held food, and took them back to The Nest. Fritz and I went once more to the wreck, and this time we brought off chests of clothes, pigs of lead, cart wheels, sacks of maize, oats, peas, and wheat. With a strong bar we broke down some of the doors, and took such parts of the ship as we thought would aid us to build our house, which as yet was far less safe than I could wish. These we bound with cords, and made them float back at the stern of the raft.
When we got to the shore my wife and the three boys were there to greet us. My first care was to send for the sledge, and with this we took most of our new wealth up to The Nest.
The next day I told my sons that they must now learn to run, to leap, to climb, and to throw stones straight at a mark, as all these things would be of great use to them in their new mode of life.
I next taught them to use the LAS-SO, by means of which men catch the wild horse on the vast plains of the New World. I tied two stones to the ends of a cord some yards in length, and flung off one of them at the trunk of a young tree; the cord went round and round it in a coil and bound it so tight that I could have drawn it to me had it not been fast in the ground. This trick the boys were not slow to learn; and Fritz, in a short time, could take an aim as well with a stone as he could with his gun.
As yet we had not seen much of the isle; for it took most of our time to build the house. But one day we made up our minds that we would all start on a tour. We rose at dawn, put the ass in the sledge, took what food we thought we should need, and set out from The Nest just as the sun rose.
When we came to the wood where Fritz found the ape, he told them by what means we got the nuts, but now there were no apes there to throw them down.
"Oh, if one would but fall from the trees," he said.