toil, ached wretchedly. He decided to make a spade. With his flint he
bored four holes in a great, round mussel shell. They formed a rectangle
as long as a little finger and as wide. Through these holes he drew
cocoanut fibre and bound the shell to a handle fast and strong.

With his spade he dug a hole so deep that he could stand in it upright.
Then he put in a couple of shelves made of flat stones. In this cellar
he put his rabbit meat and his eggs. Then he laid branches over it and
finally covered the whole with leaves.

XVIII

ROBINSON BECOMES A SHEPHERD

With his bow and arrow, Robinson went hunting every day. The rabbits
soon learned to know him and let themselves be seldom seen. As soon as
they saw him, they took alarm. They became timid and shy. One day
Robinson went out as usual to shoot rabbits. He found none. But as he
came to a great rock he heard from behind a new sound, one he had not
heard before in the island. Ba-a-a, it sounded.

"A kid," thought Robinson, "like that with which I have so often played
at home."

He slipped noiselessly around the rock and behold, really there stood a
kid. He tried to call it, but the kid sought safety in flight. He
hastened after it. Then he noticed that it was lame in one fore foot. It
ran into some brush, where Robinson seized it by the horns and held it
fast.

How Robinson rejoiced! He stroked it and fondled it. Then he thought,
how could it come into this wilderness on this lonesome island? "Has
your ship been cast upon the rocks too, and been broken to pieces? You
dear thing, you shall be my comrade." He seized the goat by the legs,
and no matter how it kicked, carried it to his cave.

Then he fetched quickly a cocoanut shell full of water and washed and
bathed the goat's wounded leg. A stone had rolled down from the hill and
had inflicted a severe wound on its left fore leg, or perhaps it had
stepped into a crack in the rocks. Robinson tore off a piece of linen
from his shirt, dipped it in water and bound it with shreds of the
cocoanut upon the wound. Then he pulled some grass and moss and made a
soft bed near the door of the cave. After he had given it water, it
looked at him with thankful eyes and licked his hand.

Robinson could not sleep that night. He thought continually of his goat
and got up time and again to see if it was safe. The moon shone clear in
the heavens. As Robinson sat before the goat's bed he looked down on his
new possession