The Wreck of The Red Bird Part 17

Breakfast was finished before daylight that morning, and when it was over the three companions resumed work upon their fortification. Ned stopped long enough to catch some shrimps for dinner, but with that exception there was no break at all in the morning's work, and dinner-time found the boys tired as well as hungry. The afternoon was spent quite as industriously, and when night came the fort, though still incomplete, was well advanced toward security.

"Now," said Ned, when supper-time came, "we have had rather too much of shrimps, I think, and of oysters too. I'm going out with the net to-night to catch some fish for to-morrow. What do you two propose to do?"

"I'm going to make some more clubs," said Charley. "We've something like a fort now, and the next thing is to provide an abundance of ammunition."

"By the way," said Ned, "why can't we make some better arms?"

"Of what sort?" asked Jack.

"Well, bows and arrows, for example. We can make arrow-heads out of some of our copper bolts, and they are weapons not to be despised--what are you smiling at, Charley?"

"Oh! nothing; I was only wondering what good bows and arrows would do without bowstrings."

Ned's countenance fell; then he joined in the smile of his companions, and admitted that his little plan had been very imperfectly worked out in his head.

"I might make some blow-guns out of the canes," he said, "but they're not worth making. I have killed birds with them, but I've tried them thoroughly and they won't shoot hard enough to drive an arrow-head half an inch into a pine plank; so they would be worthless for our purposes."

"Yes," said Jack, "I think we may make up our minds that we've got to get on with no better weapons than our clubs for general use, with the axe, hatchet, and digging tools to fall back upon as a last resort. To use such things means to kill, and of course we don't want to do that."

"No, of course not. We only want to protect ourselves and make these squatters let us alone. We don't want to do the poor creatures any unnecessary harm."

Saying this, Ned took the net and went away in search of fish. When he had gone Jack said:

"Charley, let's build a platform to fight from."

"I don't quite understand you," said Charley.

"Well, you see the stockade is ten feet high, and slopes outward, and so it won't be easy for anybody to scale it; but it isn't impossible, particularly if one has time to put up a pole or two to climb on. My notion is that we must be prepared to interfere with anybody who tries to do that. We must build a sort of platform all around inside the stockade, about six feet from the ground; it needn't be any thing more than a row of poles laid against the stockade and supported by some forked stakes. We can then stand up on these poles and look over the top of the stockade. If anybody tries to climb up, we can beat him back from there, while if we were on the ground inside here, we should be nearly helpless. It won't take you and me more than half an hour or so to rig the thing up."

"That's a good idea," replied Charley; "and we need the platform more to-night than we shall at any time hereafter."

"Why?"

"Because if those fellows mean to attack us they will do so at once. If we escape to-night we're not likely to be attacked at all."

"I don't know about that," answered Jack. "On the contrary, I think they'll let us alone to-night, because they'll expect us to be on the lookout for them. They have no special fancy for getting their heads broken, and when they come they will try to take us by surprise. At least that's my notion."

"Then you think they are likely to attack us later this week or next?"

"Yes, at any time except to-night. They will wait for us to make up our minds that they aren't coming at all."

"Well--that _fabula docet_ that we mustn't make up our minds in that direction at all."

"Exactly. We must be as alert two weeks hence as we are now--if we're here so long. But come, let's get to work."

Cutting some forked stakes, which did not need to be driven far into the ground, because they were to be leant toward the sloping stockade, the boys placed them in position, and laid poles from one to another until the line stretched all the way around the enclosure. It was easy to walk upon these poles all the way around, and when standing upon them the boys' shoulders were above the top of the stockade.

Near the water, on each side, an entrance to the stockade had been made, and a movable piece of timber, with a notch in it and a brace behind, served to close each of these gates; and when thus closed and fastened from the inside, the gates were as secure as any other part of the fortress.

Jack's prediction that the enemy would not appear on Monday night was verified. The whole of that week, indeed, was pa.s.sed in complete quietude.

Having made their fortress reasonably secure, the boys resumed work upon the boat on Monday and continued it throughout the week; but they gave only one half of each day to that task, devoting the other half to the work of strengthening their fort. The posts, as we know, were originally set six inches apart for the sake of hurrying the work, but this was not intended to be a permanent arrangement. As fast as they could the boys filled up the s.p.a.ces thus left, and by Sat.u.r.day night the fort was complete, so that its inmates felt entirely confident of their ability to beat off any attack the negro squatters might choose to make.

Meantime the boat approached completion, though there was, perhaps, a week's work, or a little less, still to be done upon her.

"We must caulk her seams," said Ned on Sunday, as the boys sat chatting round their fire, "with moss instead of oak.u.m, and then we'll coat her all over with pitch."

"By the way," answered Charley, "we've got to make the pitch. Do you know how, Ned?"

"Not very well," replied Ned, "but I think we can make out."

"I know," said Jack; "I've seen tar made in the North Carolina tar country, and pitch is only boiled tar."

"Very well, then, you shall superintend that job," said Ned; "you know that was our bargain, to make each fellow manage the things he understood best."

"You'd better make a lot of salt, then, right away, beginning to-morrow morning."

"Why? You don't use salt in making pitch, do you?"

"No; but I shall want the big kettle to boil the tar in, and it won't be fit for use as a salt kettle after that."

"Then we must cook up all our rice too," said Charley.

"No, we needn't," said Ned; "it would spoil if we did, and we can cook it, as we need it, in the coffee-pot."

Early the next morning these preparations were begun. Charley got his salt factory at work, Ned worked at the boat, and Jack made preparations for tar-burning. He began by digging a pit about four feet square and two feet deep. Then--at a distance of about a foot--he dug another pit about three feet square and four feet deep. He packed the wall of earth that separated the two pits as firmly as he could, and then, cutting a long joint of cane for a tar pipe, he pa.s.sed it through this wall, from a point exactly at the bottom of the shallow pit. He inclined it downward a little, so that the tar might easily run though it and fall into the deeper pit.

Having finished this part of his work, Jack went into the woods near the camp and prepared a large quant.i.ty of "fat" pine for burning. Piling this in the shallow pit, and heaping it two or three feet above the level ground, he took the shovel and covered the pile with earth to a depth of a foot or more, leaving a single opening through which he could set fire to the ma.s.s. His object was, by smothering the flames in this way, to make the fat, resinous pine burn slowly, creating a roasting heat under the earth, and thus, as it were, melting the tar out of the pine. If he had not covered the wood with earth, it would have blazed up and burned to smoke, resin and all, making no tar at all.

When all was ready the pile was set on fire, and as soon as it had caught well, Jack covered the single opening with earth, and the mound smoked like a volcano. Pretty soon a little stream of smoking-hot tar began trickling through the cane-tube into the deep pit.

Night had now come on, and the smoke from the tar-kiln, catching the light from the camp-fire, glowed with a peculiar red color, and gave a picturesque air of strangeness to the camp.

"You've started a young volcano, Jack," said Charley, as he looked at the smoking mound.

"Yes. An improvement on Crusoe," said Ned; "he had no volcano on his island. But what a quant.i.ty of smoke the thing does make. It looks as if more material came out of the mound in that way than you put into it in the shape of wood."

"Yes, and so a gallon of water will fill a big room if you make it into steam."

"What is smoke anyhow?" asked Charley.

"It is composed of several things," answered Ned, "but chiefly of carbon. Indeed, all that you can see in smoke is carbon."

"Then why doesn't it burn?"

"It would if it were kept in the fire long enough; but the light vapors that rise from the fire carry the particles of carbon with them, and so they get out of the fire before they are burned. The smoke is simply so much wasted fuel, and many plans have been made to save it in factories where the cost of fuel is great."