All day he found abundant employment, working with flame and clay. The eating away of the log in a manner to leave a hollow shell, could not, he found, be accomplished as swiftly as he had hoped. Moreover, the fires required his constant attention, lest they burn too deeply to right or left, and thus destroy, or considerably impair, the walls he desired to protect.
In the afternoon he permitted this fire to die. Until more clay could be plastered about and the blackly charred portions of the wood removed with a tool, the process must be halted. He had still a small section inside his natural smelter to cover before he could undertake the melting of his metal, but his heap of clay was gone.
Once more, as he had on the previous occasion, he informed Elaine in the late afternoon of his intentions for the night. Her look of alarm was the only sign that escaped her resolute being. She had silently noted his earlier activity with the bomb and his fire-preserving wood; she was not surprised by his plans.
"I shall not be down at the spring," he said, "but over there nearer the clay pit. I have found a place where I rather expect our friend to arrive at a decently early hour."
Her eyes were startled and wide.
"Do you mean he sleeps where you have been walking every day?"
"No—certainly not. But I'm sure he was there last night—and I hope he'll come again."
She was quick to divine the unpleasant truth that Grenville was striving to avoid.
"You mean—he's been eating there—and left some awful——"
"Good pork," he agreed, as he took up his bomb; "a fine wild boar—enough to have done us for a week."