placed his foot and raised himself to test
its strength. It bore his weight well. Above this first peg he fixed a
second, three feet or so higher, and then a third about level with his
face.

"Ah! I see," exclaimed Otto, coming up at that moment with several long
bamboos. "But, man, don't you see that if one of these pegs should give
way while you're driving those above it, down you come by the run, and,
if you should be high up at the time, death will be probable--lameness
for life, certain."

Dominick did not condescend to answer this remark, but, taking one of
the bamboos, stood it up close to the tree, not touching, but a few
inches from the trunk, and bound it firmly with the cord to the three
pegs. Thus he had the first three rounds or rungs of an upright ladder,
one side of which was the tree, the other the bamboo. Mounting the
second of these rungs he drove in a fourth peg, and fastened the bamboo
to it in the same way, and then, taking another step, he fixed a fifth
peg. Thus, step by step, he mounted till he had reached between fifteen
and twenty feet from the ground, where the upright bamboo becoming too
slender, another was called for and handed up by Otto. This was lashed
to the first bamboo, as well as to three of the highest pegs, and the
operation was continued. When the thin part of the second long bamboo
was reached, a third was added; and so the work progressed until the
ladder was completed, and the lower branches of the tree were gained.

Long before that point, however, Otto begged to be allowed to continue
and finish the work, which his brother agreed to, and, finally, the
signal flag was renewed, by the greater part of an old hammock being
lashed to the top of the tree.

But weeks and months passed away, and the flag continued to fly without
attracting the attention of any one more important, or more powerful to
deliver them, than the albatross and the wild sea-mew.

During this period the ingenuity and inventive powers of the party were
taxed severely, for, being utterly destitute of tools of any kind, with
the exception of the gully-knives before mentioned, they found it
extremely difficult to fashion any sort of implement.

"If we had only an axe or a saw," said Otto one morning, with a groan of
despair, "what a difference it would make."

"Isn't there a proverb," said Pauline, who at the time was busy making
cordage while Otto was breaking sticks for the fire, "which says that