"I fancy I've read that they build up their hair into a sort of huge turban, with grease and things."
"Horrid!" said Tommy. "I vote we cut our hair short like a boy's; you've got a pair of scissors in your housewife, Mary. Then it won't bother any of us."
"I don't think that would be wise," said Elizabeth; "we might get sunstroke. As it is we are protected a little. I'm going to let my hair down. Perhaps we might make a comb out of a bit of wood."
"A long fiddling job that will be," said Tommy. "I'm going to catch a fish for breakfast, and if it's like the one I caught yesterday, take out the backbone and use that for a comb."
"That's rather an original idea," said Elizabeth. "Won't our hair smell fishy, though?"
"Not if we wash the bone and then dry it in the sun, I should think. Anyway, we can try."
The girls went off together to the rocks from which they had fished on the previous day. The first fish they hooked was of a different kind from the one whose wholesomeness they had proved, and Tommy threw it back into the sea, saying that she could not wait while another experiment was being tried. After a time she landed one of the right sort, and this, when baked, made a capital breakfast for them all. No biscuit remained, and Tommy sighed for bread and butter; but they enjoyed the change of fare. They washed the skeleton as Tommy had suggested, and set it to dry in the sun. Then they resumed their weaving. Elizabeth made some rough measurements, and found that a great deal more matting was required than they anticipated, so that several days must pass before they could begin the actual building of the hut.
Mary and Elizabeth had both set their watches by the sun, and so were able to tell with reasonable accuracy the time of day. But they had not kept count of the days as they passed, and now Elizabeth suggested that they should each morning cut a notch in one of the trees to serve as a calendar.
That night they tested the comb of fishbone. Mary's hair was the finest, and she managed to comb out its tangles fairly well; but when Elizabeth tried to do the same with her thicker and stronger locks, several of the bones snapped off, and it was clear that a new comb of this sort would be needed every day. She reverted, therefore, to her idea of trying to make a wooden comb; and during the next few days, Mary, who had had some practice in fretwork at home, worked with her knife at a thin fragment of wood.
It was a difficult task. She found herself quite unable to make the teeth equal in size, or equal in distance from each other. But she persevered, and on the third evening after starting the work she showed the comb to her sisters.