the cooking, while I
keep a look-out for Indians, and if any come within sight you can both
get in here before they discover you, or if they do see you, they can't
find you after you run away from the fire, and they will look for you
out in the woods somewhere. Nobody would think of looking here. Now let
me tell you how to cook the things. I was at a 'clam bake' in New
England once, and I know how to make these mussels and corn taste well.
You must dig a sort of fireplace in the sand bank and build your fire in
there. When it burns away until you have a good bank of coals, you must
put down on them a layer of the corn, in the shuck, then a layer of
mussels, then a layer of corn, and finally cover them all up with coals
and hot ashes, and leave them there for an hour or two, when they will
be cooked beautifully."

"But Mas' Sam," said Joe.

"Well, what is it, Joe?"

"How's we gwine to git de fire?"

"Well, how do you think, Joe?"

"I 'clare I dunno, Mas' Sam, 'thout you got some flints an' punk in your
pockets."

"No, I have no flints and no punk, Joe, but I'm going to get you some
fire when the sun gets straight overhead."

"Is you gwine to git it from de sun, Mas' Sam?"

"Yes."

"What wid, Mas' Sam?"

"With water, Joe."

"Wid water, Mas' Sam! You'se foolin'. How you gwine to git fire wid
water, _I'd_ like to know."

"Well, wait and see. I'm not fooling."

To tell the truth, Tom was quite as much at a loss as Joe was, to know
how Sam could get fire with water; but his confidence in his "big
brother," as he called Sam, was too perfect to admit of a doubt or a
question. As for Judie, she would hardly have raised her eyebrows if Sam
had burned water, or whittled it into dolls' heads before her eyes. She
believed in Sam absolutely, and supposed, as a matter of course, that he
knew everything and could do anything he liked. But Joe was not yet
satisfied that water could be made to assist in the kindling of a fire.
He said nothing more, however, but carefully watched all of Sam's
preparations.

That young gentleman began by tearing a strip of cotton cloth from his
shirt, and picking it to pieces. He then gathered from the drift-wood a
number of dry sticks, and broke and split them up very fine.

"We must have a few splinters of light-wood," he said; "but after the
fire is once started, we mustn't put any more pine on."

So saying, he split off a few splinters from a piece of rich heart-pine,
which South