represent a fair-sized village. We have
mechanics, carpenters, farmers, surveyors, masons,--and merchants, to
say nothing of cooks, housekeepers, and so on. The ship contains all
sorts of tools to work with, canvas for temporary quarters, beds and
bedding, cooking utensils,--in fact, we have everything that Robinson
Crusoe didn't have, and besides all that, we've got each other. We are
not alone on a desert island. We are, my friends, as well off as the
Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock, and we are better off than the
hardy colonists who laid the foundation for the country that flies
that flag up there. Centuries ago bold adventurers set out to discover
unknown lands. They were few in number and poorly equipped. But they
ventured into the wilderness and built villages that grew to be cities.
They went through a thousand hardships that we will never know, and they
survived.

"Captain Trigger and the others selected me to make this talk to
you because I have had some practical experience in establishing and
developing a camp, such as we will have to build. Experience has taught
me one thing above all others: work, hard work of a constructive nature,
is our only salvation. Unless we occupy ourselves from one day's end to
another in good, hard, honest toil, we will all go mad. That's the long
and the short of it. If we sat still on this boat for thirty days, doing
nothing, we'd lose our minds. There isn't a man in this crowd, I am
sure, who wouldn't work his head off to spare the women an hour of
hardship. But the greatest hardship you women could possibly know would
be idleness. There will be work for every one to do, and we can thank
God for it, my friends. We will have to work for nothing. We will have
to help each other. There is but one class on this island at present,
and that is the working class.

"We've all got people at home waiting for us. By this time the whole
world knows that the Doraine is three weeks overdue at Rio Janeiro, and
that no word has been had from her. The ocean is being searched. Our
friends, our relatives are doing everything in their power to get trace
of this lost ship. You may depend on that. In a little while,--a few
weeks, at best,--the ship will be given up for lost. We will be counted
as dead, all of us. That's a hard, cruel thing for me to say, and I hate
to say it,--but we've just got to realize the position we're in. It's
best that we should look at it from the worst possible angle