irt away from
the entrance, or enough so that it would not choke up the opening. A
large clam shell was all he could think of at present. He would carry
the dirt to the entrance and some distance away, and then throw it.
Fortunately the ground sloped away rapidly, so that he needed a kind of
platform before his door.

He was careful to open the cleft at some distance above the large
opening. For the air was damp and impure in the shelter. But with the
opening made high above, fresh air was constantly passing into, and
impure air out of, his cave. Light, too, was admitted in this way.

XII

ROBINSON MAKES A HUNTING BAG

Several days passed with Robinson's hat-making and his calendar-making
and his watching the sea. Every day his corn and bananas became more
distasteful to him. And he planned a longer journey about the island to
see if something new to eat could be found.

But he considered that if he went a distance from his cave and found
something it would really be of little use to him. "I could eat my
fill," he said, "but that is all. And by the time I get back to my cave
I will again be hungry. I must find something in which I can gather and
carry food." He found nothing.

"The people in New York," he said, "have baskets, or pockets, or bags
made of coarse cloth. Of them all, I could most easily make the net,
perhaps, of vines. But the little things would fall out of the net. I
will see whether I can make a net of small meshes."

But he soon saw that the vines did not give a smooth surface. He
thought for a long while. In his garden at home his father had sometimes
bound up the young trees with the soft inner bark of others. He wondered
if he could use this. He stripped away the outer bark from the tree,
which before had yielded him a fibre for his hat, and pulled off the
long, smooth pieces of the inner bark. He twisted them together. Then he
thought how he could weave the strands together. He looked at his shirt.
A piece was torn off and unravelled. He could see the threads go up and
down. He saw that some threads go from left to right (woof), others
lengthwise (the warp).

From his study of the woven cloth, Robinson saw he must have a firmer
thread than the strips of bark gave alone. He separated his bark into
long, thin strips. These he twisted into strands of yarn by rolling
between his hands, or on a smooth surface. As he twisted it he wound it
on a stick. It was slow, hard work. Of all his w