udge from our
first encampment--that is to say, out of sight of Santa's grave; and
he flatly refused to fit new planks to the ruinated boat which now
lay, a thing of ribs, high and dry as we had hauled her close
underneath the fern-brake beside the cascade. Again and again I
pointed out to him that, patched up, she would serve me for fishing.
To this he answered, truly enough, that we had a plenty of fish in
the rock-pools and a plenty of oysters on the shore. Then I urged
that, if we sighted a ship--though it didn't matter to me--we might
need a boat to get out to her. He retorted that, though it mattered
to him, he would never set foot again in that cursed craft or help me
to set foot in her. Finally, one day when I was absent on an
expedition after food, he broke her remains to shreds.

"Upon this we had an insane quarrel--the more insane because it all
turned on my dwelling on the detriment to his chances of escape and
his reminding me of my indifference. We argued like two babies.
But I had now another grievance: though it was the devil to me to be
falling back on grievances.

"I still held the whip-hand over him in this--I could always thong
him by a threat to part company and live by myself on the east side
of the island. He mortally feared to be left, even with the dog for
company.

"The dog remained a mystery. Although, as time went on, we explored
the island pretty thoroughly, we never found his owner, nor any sign
of human habitation. The conies which bred and multiplied on the
hills were our only assurance that man had ever landed here before
us--that is, until we discovered the strange boat: and it was through
the dog that we discovered it."

"During the first three months we made no lengthy excursions, being
occupied in cutting and sawing timber for the two living-huts and a
store-hut; in making a small net (this was my task), and in
sun-drying the fish I caught in it--for, knowing little about these
latitudes, I feared that at any moment the heavenly weather might
break, and we be held prisoners by torrential rains, traces of which
I read in some of the seaward-running gullies. Also Farrell refused
to budge until he had built his bonfire. When this was done we had
another pretty fierce quarrel because, tired of waiting, I took a
humour to punish him by making him wait in his turn while I did some
tailoring. . . . No: we didn't dress in goatskins. There were no
goats. But I had visions