“Fool!” I cried aloud in my vexation.

I had unloaded the boat and carried its contents high up on the beach,where I had set about making a camp. There was driftwood, though notmuch, on the beach, and the sight of a coffee tin I had taken from the_Ghost’s_ larder had given me the idea of a fire.

“Blithering idiot!” I was continuing.

But Maud said, “Tut, tut,” in gentle reproval, and then asked why I was ablithering idiot.

“No matches,” I groaned. “Not a match did I bring. And now we shallhave no hot coffee, soup, tea, or anything!”

“Wasn’t it—er—Crusoe who rubbed sticks together?” she drawled.

“But I have read the personal narratives of a score of shipwrecked menwho tried, and tried in vain,” I answered. “I remember Winters, anewspaper fellow with an Alaskan and Siberian reputation. Met him at theBibelot once, and he was telling us how he attempted to make a fire witha couple of sticks. It was most amusing. He told it inimitably, but itwas the story of a failure. I remember his conclusion, his black eyesflashing as he said, ‘Gentlemen, the South Sea Islander may do it, theMalay may do it, but take my word it’s beyond the white man.’”

“Oh, well, we’ve managed so far without it,” she said cheerfully. “Andthere’s no reason why we cannot still manage without it.”

“But think of the coffee!” I cried. “It’s good coffee, too, I know. Itook it from Larsen’s private stores. And look at that good wood.”

I confess, I wanted the coffee badly; and I learned, not long afterward,that the berry was likewise a little weakness of Maud’s. Besides, we hadbeen so long on a cold diet that we were numb inside as well as out.Anything warm would have been most gratifying. But I complained no moreand set about making a tent of the sail for Maud.

I had looked upon it as a simple task, what of the oars, mast, boom, andsprit, to say nothing of plenty of lines. But as I was withoutexperience, and as every detail was an experiment and every successfuldetail an invention, the day was well gone before her shelter was anaccomplished fact. And then, that night, it rained, and she was floodedout and driven back into the boat.

The next morning I dug a shallow ditch around the tent, and, an hourlater, a sudden gust of wind, whipping over the rocky wall behind us,picked up the tent and smashed it down on the sand thirty yards away.

Maud laughed at my crestfallen expression, and I said, “As soon as thewind abates I intend going in the boat to explore the island. There mustbe a station somewhere, and men. And ships must visit the station. SomeGovernment must protect all these seals. But I wish to have youcomfortable before I start.”

“I should like to go with you,” was all she said.

“It would be better if you remained. You have had enough of hardship.It is a miracle that you have survived. And it won’t be comfortable inthe boat rowing and sailing in this rainy weather. What you need isrest, and I should like you to remain and get it.”

Something suspiciously akin to moistness dimmed her beautiful eyes beforeshe dropped them and partly turned away her head.

“I should prefer going with you,” she said in a low voice, in which therewas just a hint of appeal.

“I might be able to help you a—” her voice broke,—“a little. And ifanything should happen to you, think of me left here alone.”

“Oh, I intend being very careful,” I answered. “And I shall not go sofar but what I can get back before night. Yes, all said and done, Ithink it vastly better for you to remain, and sleep, and rest and donothing.”

She turned and looked me in the eyes. Her gaze was unfaltering, butsoft.

“Please, please,” she said, oh, so softly.

I stiffened myself to refuse, and shook my head. Still she waited andlooked at me. I tried to word my refusal, but wavered. I saw the gladlight spring into her eyes and knew that I had lost. It was impossibleto say no after that.

The wind died down in the afternoon, and we were prepared to start thefollowing morning. There was no way of penetrating the island from ourcove, for the walls rose perpendicularly from the beach, and, on eitherside of the cove, rose from the deep water.

Morning broke dull and grey, but calm, and I was awake early and had theboat in readiness.

“Fool! Imbecile! Yahoo!” I shouted, when I thought it was meet toarouse Maud; but this time I shouted in merriment as I danced about thebeach, bareheaded, in mock despair.

Her head appeared under the flap of the sail.

“What now?” she asked sleepily, and, withal, curiously.

“Coffee!” I cried. “What do you say to a cup of coffee? hot coffee?piping hot?”

“My!” she murmured, “you startled me, and you are cruel. Here I havebeen composing my soul to do without it, and here you are vexing me withyour vain suggestions.”

“Watch me,” I said.

From under clefts among the rocks I gathered a few dry sticks and chips.These I whittled into shavings or split into kindling. From my note-bookI tore out a page, and from the ammunition box took a shot-gun shell.Removing the wads from the latter with my knife, I emptied the powder ona flat rock. Next I pried the primer, or cap, from the shell, and laidit on the rock, in the midst of the scattered powder. All was ready.Maud still watched from the tent. Holding the paper in my left hand, Ismashed down upon the cap with a rock held in my right. There was a puffof white smoke, a burst of flame, and the rough edge of the paper wasalight.

Maud clapped her hands gleefully. “Prometheus!” she cried.

But I was too occupied to acknowledge her delight. The feeble flame mustbe cherished tenderly if it were to gather strength and live. I fed it,shaving by shaving, and sliver by sliver, till at last it was snappingand crackling as it laid hold of the smaller chips and sticks. To becast away on an island had not entered into my calculations, so we werewithout a kettle or cooking utensils of any sort; but I made shift withthe tin used for bailing the boat, and later, as we consumed our supplyof canned goods, we accumulated quite an imposing array of cookingvessels.

I boiled the water, but it was Maud who made the coffee. And how good itwas! My contribution was canned beef fried with crumbled sea-biscuit andwater. The breakfast was a success, and we sat about the fire muchlonger than enterprising explorers should have done, sipping the hotblack coffee and talking over our situation.

I was confident that we should find a station in some one of the coves,for I knew that the rookeries of Bering Sea were thus guarded; but Maudadvanced the theory—to prepare me for disappointment, I do believe, ifdisappointment were to come—that we had discovered an unknown rookery.She was in very good spirits, however, and made quite merry in acceptingour plight as a grave one.

“If you are right,” I said, “then we must prepare to winter here. Ourfood will not last, but there are the seals. They go away in the fall,so I must soon begin to lay in a supply of meat. Then there will be hutsto build and driftwood to gather. Also we shall try out seal fat forlighting purposes. Altogether, we’ll have our hands full if we find theisland uninhabited. Which we shall not, I know.”

But she was right. We sailed with a beam wind along the shore, searchingthe coves with our glasses and landing occasionally, without finding asign of human life. Yet we learned that we were not the first who hadlanded on Endeavour Island. High up on the beach of the second cove fromours, we discovered the splintered wreck of a boat—a sealer’s boat, forthe rowlocks were bound in sennit, a gun-rack was on the starboard sideof the bow, and in white letters was faintly visible _Gazelle_ No. 2.The boat had lain there for a long time, for it was half filled withsand, and the splintered wood had that weather-worn appearance due tolong exposure to the elements. In the stern-sheets I found a rustyten-gauge shot-gun and a sailor’s sheath-knife broken short across and sorusted as to be almost unrecognizable.

“They got away,” I said cheerfully; but I felt a sinking at the heart andseemed to divine the presence of bleached bones somewhere on that beach.

I did not wish Maud’s spirits to be dampened by such a find, so I turnedseaward again with our boat and skirted the north-eastern point of theisland. There were no beaches on the southern shore, and by earlyafternoon we rounded the black promontory and completed thecircumnavigation of the island. I estimated its circumference attwenty-five miles, its width as varying from two to five miles; while mymost conservative calculation placed on its beaches two hundred thousandseals. The island was highest at its extreme south-western point, theheadlands and backbone diminishing regularly until the north-easternportion was only a few feet above the sea. With the exception of ourlittle cove, the other beaches sloped gently back for a distance ofhalf-a-mile or so, into what I might call rocky meadows, with here andthere patches of moss and tundra grass. Here the seals hauled out, andthe old bulls guarded their harems, while the young bulls hauled out bythemselves.

This brief description is all that Endeavour Island merits. Damp andsoggy where it was not sharp and rocky, buffeted by storm winds andlashed by the sea, with the air continually a-tremble with the bellowingof two hundred thousand amphibians, it was a melancholy and miserablesojourning-place. Maud, who had prepared me for disappointment, and whohad been sprightly and vivacious all day, broke down as we landed in ourown little cove. She strove bravely to hide it from me, but while I waskindling another fire I knew she was stifling her sobs in the blanketsunder the sail-tent.

It was my turn to be cheerful, and I played the part to the best of myability, and with such success that I brought the laughter back into herdear eyes and song on her lips; for she sang to me before she went to anearly bed. It was the first time I had heard her sing, and I lay by thefire, listening and transported, for she was nothing if not an artist ineverything she did, and her voice, though not strong, was wonderfullysweet and expressive.

I still slept in the boat, and I lay awake long that night, gazing up atthe first stars I had seen in many nights and pondering the situation.Responsibility of this sort was a new thing to me. Wolf Larsen had beenquite right. I had stood on my father’s legs. My lawyers and agents hadtaken care of my money for me. I had had no responsibilities at all.Then, on the _Ghost_ I had learned to be responsible for myself. Andnow, for the first time in my life, I found myself responsible for someone else. And it was required of me that this should be the gravest ofresponsibilities, for she was the one woman in the world—the one smallwoman, as I loved to think of her.