two rods away! Breathless with
excitement now, and feeling himself yielding to some dread spell, he
almost sprang to the spot, and oblivious of weed-covered rocks and mud,
he went down on his hands and knees and peered in. It was a cave
opening, sure enough! Trembling still, and yet lured by a weird
fascination, he crawled in a short distance and then paused. The hole
looked larger inside, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom he
could see it sloped upward. He felt for a match, and lighting it tried
to peer further in. The match burned out and left him unable to see as
far as before. Then reason began to assert itself, and he turned and
crawled out, realizing the folly of trying to explore a cave with
lighted matches as an aid.

When once more he stood upright outside a strange thing had happened.
Not only had the tide crept up almost to the cave entrance, but the sun
was no longer visible, and as he looked up to the top of the rock wall
that environed him, a white pall of fog was slowly settling down and
hiding all things. He looked at his watch. He had been on the island
over four hours! With sudden fear he started around the way he had come,
and when he reached the keg of rum an inspiration almost, made him lift
and carry it to a place of safety, well above high-tide mark. Then he
retraced his steps to where he had left Obed, but the dory had gone and
no one was there, and to add to the situation, the fog had so shut the
island in that he could not see two rods over the water. He hallooed
again and again, but received no answer.

He was alone on Pocket Island with not a morsel to eat, not a blanket to
cover him, night coming on, and a fog so thick that he could not see a
rod ahead! Even all this did not for one moment obliterate that
mysterious keg or cave discovery from his mind, but he felt that he must
take steps at once to protect himself from coming night, and darkness,
and possible rain, for he knew that when the fog lifted, his friends
would return. The first thing was to build himself a shelter, and then a
fire. Here his army experience came in well, and he searched until he
found two rocks with a level space between, and laying sticks across
and cutting spruce boughs to pile over them and others to serve as a
bed, he soon made ready a place to at least crawl into when night came.

Hunger began to assert itself, but food was out of the question. That
keg of rum came to his mind as he worked, however,