“To be sure,” said Limberleg. “We snare rabbits, why shouldn’t we snare fish?”
They had made hooks out of bone and had caught river fish sometimes when they lived back in the forest, but they had not brought any hooks with them on their journey. They had always been more used to hunting game than to fishing, anyway. Now with a sea full of fish right at hand, waiting to be caught, they began to think more about it.
“If we could catch fish, we should have more food right at hand than we could possibly eat, without ever hunting at all, if we didn’t want to,” said Hawk-Eye.
After that Limberleg spent days and days tying leather thongs together in a coarse net, while Hawk-Eye made bone fish-hooks for himself and Limberleg and the Twins, and fastened them to long fine strings of leather.
By August, Hawk-Eye had taught the Twins how to fish the streams for trout, and he himself had learned how to fasten his net between two of the gull rocks and catch the fish that swam in deep water.
There was nothing Hawk-Eye liked so much as going out in his boat. He went up and down the coast for miles, and it was not long before he knew every little creek and inlet and bay on the eastern end of the island.
At last, one day in August, he said to Limberleg: “I am going to load the boat with food to last a few days and see if I can’t get over to the mainland. It is only a short distance across to the nearest point. I’ve been farther than that in my boat already.”
“But I am afraid you’ll be drowned,” cried Limberleg, “and then what shall we do?”
“You can take care of yourselves,” said Hawk-Eye. “The children can already fish in the streams, and there are the rabbits and the clams. You will not want for anything while I am away.”
“But we shall be lonesome,” cried Limberleg; “and suppose you should never come back!”