s fun to live as Indians do, and he doesn't want to go
home. If he gets enough to eat he'll stay and stay, and then he can tell
Jimmie Starkweather of being wrecked on an island."

"Couldn't we get across to Long Point?" asked Anne.

"No. We can't swim, and 'twould be foolish to try," answered Amanda.

"We'll have cooked fish for dinner," said Amos as they ate beach-plums for
breakfast. "I'm sure I can find some punk somewhere on this island, and
while I am looking for it you girls gather all the dry twigs you can find,
make a good-sized hole in the sand and fill it up with dry stuff that will
take fire quickly, and I'll show you how Indians cook."

"I'd rather have some Indian meal mush," replied Amanda; "can't you swim
across to Long Point, Amos, and hurry home and send some one after us?"

Amos looked at her in astonishment, and then smiled broadly. "I know a
better way than that," he said, and without waiting to answer the girl's
eager questions he ran off toward the thicket of pines.

"We'll dig the hole in the sand, and then find some dry wood," said Anne;
"anything cooked will taste good, won't it?"

"Amos knows some way to get us home," said Amanda, "and he's got to tell
us what it is, and start just as soon as he cooks his old fish. I wonder
what it is!"

Now that Amanda saw a prospect of getting home she felt more cheerful and
so did Anne; and they gathered dry brush, bits of bark and handfuls of the
sunburned beach-grass until the hole in the sand was filled, and there was
a good-sized heap of dry brush over it.

"Do you suppose Amos can really make a fire?" asked Anne.

"I guess he can," said Amanda. "Amos is real smart at queer things like
that, that other boys don't think about."

"I've found some!" shouted Amos, as he leaped down the bank; "just a
little bit, in the stump of an old oak tree up here. Now wait till I get
the thole-pins, and you'll see," and he ran toward the dory and returned
with a pair of smooth, round thole-pins, and sat down on the sand in front
of the brush heap. The precious piece of punk was carefully wrapped in a
piece of the sleeve of his flannel blouse.

"I had to tear it off," he explained, when Amanda pointed to the ragged
slit, "for punk must be kept dry or it isn't a bit of use."

He now spread the bit of flannel on the sand in front of him, and kneeling
down beside it began to rub the thole-pins across each other as fast as he
could move his hands. Anne and Amand