es in every side of his head at once, he walked
around a bush and almost collided with her. There she stood with
dimpled face, like a child, behind the door.

She burst out laughing. Sam turned beet colour and, scowling like a
pirate, tried to carry it off with dignity.

"Don't be mad at me," she begged, struggling with her laughter. "You
so fonny, run away. Here's your breakfast. It's cold now. You can
bring it to the fire."

There was bread and smoked fish on the plate she was offering. Sam,
though his stomach cried out, turned his back on her.

"You got eat," said Bela. "Tak' it."

"Not from you," he returned bitterly.

There was a silence. He could not see how she took it. Presently he
heard her put the plate down on the sand and walk off. Her steps died
away around the point.

Sam eyed the food ravenously and began to argue with himself. In the
end, of course, he ate it, but it went down hard.

* * * * *

The day wore on. It continued to blow great guns. Sam wandered up and
down his side of the island, meditating fine but impractical schemes
of escape and revenge.

He might get away on a raft, he thought, if the wind changed and blew
in a direction favourable to carry him ashore. The trouble was the
nights were so short. He might build his raft one night, and escape on
it the next. How to keep her from finding it in the meantime offered a
problem.

He began to look about in the interior of the island for suitable
pieces of dry timber. He could use a blanket for a sail, he thought.
This reminded him that his blankets were at least his own, and he
determined to go and get them.

Rounding the point, he saw her sitting in the sand, making something
with her hands. Though she must have heard him coming, she did not
look up until he addressed her. Sam, in his desire to assert his
manhood, swaggered a bit as he came up.

She raised a face as bland as a baby's. Sam was disconcerted. Desiring
to pick a quarrel, he roughly demanded his blankets. Bela nodded
toward where they hung and went on with her work. She was making a
trolling spoon.

So much for their second encounter. Sam retired from it, feeling that
he had come off no better than from the first.

Later, back on his own side, bored and irritated beyond endurance, he
rolled up in his blankets and sought sleep as an escape from his own
company.

He slept and dreamed. The roaring of the wind and the beating of the
wa