me rattling and crashing
down the steep hill-side behind us, missing our shelter by only what
seemed a series of miracles. There were heavy thuds, accompanied by
blood-curdling snarls that suggested the progress of life-and-death
fights between ferocious beasts; and at frequent intervals we caught,
through the smoke of our fire, glimpses of great eyes glaring at us!
Such was our first experience of night life in the wild.

"At length, however, toward morning the racket gradually quieted down,
and we snatched a short spell of sleep until sunrise, when we turned out
and proceeded to hunt for breakfast. Luck was with us that morning, for
we had not gone far when we found the partly eaten carcass of a fine fat
deer. The creature had not been dead very long, for the blood about it
was scarcely dry, and the meat was quite fresh. We were hungry and not
too squeamish, so we got to work upon that deer and cut some fine steaks
off a part of him that had not been touched by the thing that had killed
him, and, carrying the meat back to our shelter, we made up the fire and
cooked ourselves a fine breakfast, finishing off with fruit as a
substitute for the water that we failed to find.

"While partaking of breakfast we discussed our future as castaways.
With our experiences of the past night fresh in his mind Fleming
proposed a return to the beach and the construction of a raft, upon
which, he suggested, we should paddle off to the wreck, with the view of
giving her an overhaul, in the hope of finding something that would
repay us for our trouble; but when it came to consideration of details,
Dirk and I came to the conclusion that, with nothing but our sheath-
knives to serve as tools, the scheme was impracticable. What we might
have attempted had we known that you and Billy were alive and still
aboard is, perhaps, another matter. Several other schemes of an equally
impracticable character were suggested, only to be abandoned after
discussion, until finally, failing any more satisfactory plan, we
decided that if we could find a nice, comfortable cave to serve as a
dwelling we would experiment a bit upon `Robinson Crusoe' lines, and see
how we liked it.

"We found several caves of one sort and another that day; but the most
suitable of them were already tenanted, as we could tell immediately
that we put our noses inside them. Moreover, many of the tenants
happened to be at home when we called, and seemed to resent our presenc