milksop or a
mollycoddle."

"That's the talk!" said John. "For my part, if Jesse agrees, we'll try
the journey back in the dory. But if we're going to undertake it we
ought to begin now to lay in plenty of supplies."

"I have been thinking of that," said Rob, "and so I move we begin now to
get together our provisions."

From that time on they all worked soberly and intently, with minds bent
upon a common purpose. They hunted ducks and geese regularly now, curing
the breasts of the wild fowl on their smoke-rack. Codfish they did not
trouble to take for curing in any great quantity, as they knew they
could secure them fresh at almost any point along these shores. Salmon
they smoked in numbers, for now the run of the humpback salmon was on,
replacing the earlier one of the smaller red salmon. Part of their dried
bear meat, now not very palatable, they still had left. They even tried
to dry in the sun some of the bulbs which the natives occasionally
brought in. Their greatest puzzle was how they could carry water, for,
since they knew nothing of the coast ahead, they feared that they might
be obliged to pass some time without meeting a fresh-water stream. At
last John managed to make Jimmy understand what they required, and he,
grinning at their ignorance, showed them how they could make a
water-cask out of a fresh seal-skin, of which they now had several from
their hunting along the coast.

"Now," said John, when finally they had solved that problem, "we've got
to have a sail of some sort."

"And not a piece of canvas or cloth as big as your hand," said Rob,
ruefully. "I admit that a sail would be a big help, for we could rig a
lee-board for the dory. Then, if the wind was right, we could get back
to Kadiak in a day, very likely; for we couldn't have been much more
than that time in coming down here without a sail."

It taxed John's ingenuity as interpreter for a long time to make the
natives understand what he now required. At last, by means of his clumsy
attempts to braid a sort of mat out of rushes and grass, they caught his
idea and fell to helping him. That week they finished a large, square
mat, fairly close in texture, which they felt sure could be used as a
square-rigged sail. They prepared a short mast and spars for this, and
as they reviewed the progress of their boat equipment they all felt a
certain relief, since all of them were more or less familiar with
boat-sailing.

"I hate to go away and miss all