"I'll bet that is just the way it really happened," his chum declared. "That explains why the fort was empty."
"Perhaps," Charley said, "but here comes Chris and the captain, and we'll have to change the subject."
"I 'spect you-alls don't pay no 'tention 'tall to dis dinner," grumbled Chris. "De fire's all out, mighty nigh."
"We are not good cooks like you, Chris," said Charley soothingly, and the vain little darky grinned at the compliment.
"Golly, I reckon dat's so," he declared pompously, "you chillens sho' don't know nothin' 'bout cookin'. Spect you-alls mighty near starve to death if it warn't for dis nigger. You chillens jes' get out, an' I'll finish gettin' de dinner."
The boys, relieved of the cooking, turned their attention to other tasks. They carried the two canoes into the empty fort and placed them bottom up in one corner. The other goods they piled up in the shade of a tree.
Charley then disappeared but soon came back with a large kettle he had noticed when removing the skeletons. "It's copper," he said, exhibiting it proudly, "with a little cleaning it will be as good as when it was made. We need it for boiling water, for we have got to clean house this afternoon."
While he carried the copper to the spring and scrubbed lustily away with sand to remove the green verdigris with which it was thickly coated, Walter attempted the manufacture of a mop. Selecting a straight piece of the root of a scrub palmetto, which grew in abundance around the wall, he trimmed it with his knife into the desired shape and size. Laying the piece, thus prepared, upon a large stone, he pounded one side of it lustily with a piece of rock. A few minutes sufficed to pound out the pith and leave the harsh fiber exposed.
By the time the two lads had completed their respective tasks, Chris announced that dinner was ready and all fell to with appetites sharpened by the morning's work.
As soon as dinner was finished, the copper kettle was filled with water and placed upon the fire. By the time the water had come to a boil, the party was sufficiently rested to attack the house cleaning.