I'm going to try to
catch some."

"To be sure," said Limberleg. "We snare rabbits, why shouldn't we snare
fish?"

They had made hooks out of bone and had caught river fish sometimes when
they lived back in the forest, but they had not brought any hooks with
them on their journey. They had always been more used to hunting game
than to fishing, anyway. Now with a sea full of fish right at hand,
waiting to be caught, they began to think more about it.

"If we could catch fish, we should have more food right at hand than we
could possibly eat, without ever hunting at all, if we didn't want to,"
said Hawk-Eye.

After that Limberleg spent days and days tying leather thongs together
in a coarse net, while Hawk-Eye made bone fish-hooks for himself and
Limberleg and the Twins, and fastened them to long fine strings of
leather.

By August, Hawk-Eye had taught the Twins how to fish the streams for
trout, and he himself had learned how to fasten his net between two of
the gull rocks and catch the fish that swam in deep water.

There was nothing Hawk-Eye liked so much as going out in his boat. He
went up and down the coast for miles, and it was not long before he knew
every little creek and inlet and bay on the eastern end of the island.

At last, one day in August, he said to Limberleg: "I am going to load
the boat with food to last a few days and see if I can't get over to the
mainland. It is only a short distance across to the nearest point.
I've been farther than that in my boat already."

"But I am afraid you'll be drowned," cried Limberleg, "and then what
shall we do?"

"You can take care of yourselves," said Hawk-Eye. "The children can
already fish in the streams, and there are the rabbits and the clams.
You will not want for anything while I am away."

"But we shall be lonesome," cried Limberleg; "and suppose you should
never come back!"

"But I shall come back," said Hawk-Eye. "You'll see."

Limberleg knew it was useless to say any more, and the very next day she
and the Twins helped him load his boat with deer-meat and wild plums and
acorns, and then Hawk-Eye put in his spear and his stone axe and hooks
and line, and got in himself.

The three of them stood on the beach and watched him push off from their
island and start across the channel toward the main land. They watched
him until the boat was a mere black speck in the distance. Then they
trudged slowly back to their lonely cave.

There foll