kness was to be busy all the time. This
discovery is not new among military men, or those who lead exploring
parties, although it was one which Rob thought out for himself; so now
he went on:

"We'll just take the dory," he said, "and slip down the coast beyond the
mouth of the creek, and so on beyond the rocks where Jimmy and we all
went when we got the sea-parrot hides. There are rocks over there, tall
needles with straight sides, that have got thousands of birds of all
sorts on them."

"What will we do with our eagles?" asked Jesse, hesitating.

"We can leave them plenty of food, and put a few boards together so
that they can get under in case the crows or ravens should attack them.
They will get along all right, I am sure."

"I'd like to go with Skookie in the bidarka," said John, but Rob shook
his head.

"No, you don't," he said, "you go in the dory with the rest of us. That
boy is all right, but he might not be strong enough to handle a bidarka
in a high sea; and up here we never can tell when the wind is going to
come up."

"Suppose it did upset," said John, sturdily. "I have been out of it,
here in the lagoon."

"Yes, but that is different from getting upset out there in the middle
of the bay. You know perfectly well that you could not get back in
again; and swimming out there is something different from the lagoon,
where the bank is right at hand all the time. I don't even like to go
very far out in the dory; but see, it is fair and calm just now. So
hurry up and let's get away. Get all the rope you can, too, fellows,
because we may have to go down the face of the rock to get at the
nests."

"I have seen pictures of that," said Jesse--"how the egg-gatherers go
down in a rope handled by other men up above them on the rocks. Do you
suppose that three of us could pull the other fellow up and down?
Skookie here looks pretty strong."

"I don't know," said Rob, "but we'll take the rope along and see how it
works out."

Not long after they were safely off in the big dory, which, under two
pairs of oars and with the wind favorable, astern, made very good time
down the long spit at the mouth of the creek. Beyond that point they
were obliged to take to the open bay, quite out of touch of land, for a
distance of a mile and a half. This brought them to the foot of a small,
rocky island, out of which arose two or three sharp, column-like groups
of rocks which, as Rob had said, were literally covered with nesti