smooth them with our knives. We had next to shape out
additional timbers to strengthen the boat, as to which also to fix the
planks to. We likewise decked over the fore and aft parts, both to keep
out the sea and to prevent our provisions from getting wet. The doctor
searched everywhere for some sort of resin which might serve to caulk
our boat.

He at last found some which he thought might answer, but as we had only
a small iron pot to boil it in, we had to go without our soup or our hot
water till the pot was again thoroughly cleaned out. It answered the
purpose, however, better than we had expected, and with mosses and dried
grass we made up a substance which served instead of oakum. Jack worked
as hard as any of us, and was very useful in catching a number of birds,
which he salted and dried in the sun.

At length one day, when nearly all our preparations were concluded, the
mate said, "And now, Jack Trawl, we must get you to bring your
poultry-yard down. We shall not have room for all the fowl, in the boat
but I think we can cut down and repair the old hen-coop to hold a good
many, and we must kill and salt the rest."

"What I kill my fowl--my old companions!" said Jack. "What! Cannot we
let them live? They'll soon find food for themselves; they do that
pretty well already, and I couldn't bear to see their necks wrung."

"I wish we were able to do without them," said the mate; "but our lives
are of more value than those of the fowl. I can enter into your
feelings, and we will not ask you to kill any nor to eat them afterwards
unless you change your mind. Look you here, Jack; if the savages came
to the island they'd kill the fowl fast enough, and perhaps our lives
may depend on our having them."

The doctor then said something to the same effect, and at last Jack was
talked over to allow some of his fowl to be killed at once, and dried
and salted like the other birds.

We brought the hen-coop down to the beach, and by dint of hard work cut
it away so as to hold two dozen fowl closely packed. At night, when the
birds had gone to roost, Miles, Coal, Jack, and I went up and took the
others while roosting. What a cackling and screeching the poor
creatures made on finding themselves hauled off their perches and having
their legs tied! The noise they made might have been heard over half
the island.

We brought them down and stowed them away in the hen-coop. Jack,
accompanied by Jim, had before colle