it into kindling. From my note-book
I tore out a page, and from the ammunition box took a shot-gun shell.
Removing the wads from the latter with my knife, I emptied the powder on
a flat rock. Next I pried the primer, or cap, from the shell, and laid
it on the rock, in the midst of the scattered powder. All was ready.
Maud still watched from the tent. Holding the paper in my lelf hand, I
smashed down upon the cap with a rock held in my right. There was a puff
of white smoke, a burst of flame, and the rough edge of the paper was
alight.

Maud clapped her hands gleefully. "Prometheus!" she cried.

But I was too occupied to acknowledge her delight. The feeble flame must
be cherished tenderly if it were to gather strength and live. I fed it,
shaving by shaving, and sliver by sliver, till at last it was snapping
and crackling as it laid hold of the smaller chips and sticks. To be
cast away on an island had not entered into my calculations, so we were
without a kettle or cooking utensils of any sort; but I made shift with
the tin used for bailing the boat, and later, as we consumed our supply
of canned goods, we accumulated quite an imposing array of cooking
vessels.

I boiled the water, but it was Maud who made the coffee. And how good it
was! My contribution was canned beef fried with crumbled sea-biscuit and
water. The breakfast was a success, and we sat about the fire much
longer than enterprising explorers should have done, sipping the hot
black coffee and talking over our situation.

I was confident that we should find a station in some one of the coves,
for I knew that the rookeries of Bering Sea were thus guarded; but Maud
advanced the theory--to prepare me for disappointment, I do believe, if
disappointment were to come--that we had discovered an unknown rookery.
She was in very good spirits, however, and made quite merry in accepting
our plight as a grave one.

"If you are right," I said, "then we must prepare to winter here. Our
food will not last, but there are the seals. They go away in the fall,
so I must soon begin to lay in a supply of meat. Then there will be huts
to build and driftwood to gather. Also we shall try out seal fat for
lighting purposes. Altogether, we'll have our hands full if we find the
island uninhabited. Which we shall not, I know."

But she was right. We sailed with a beam wind along the shore, searching
the coves with our glasses and landing occasionally, without fi