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Updated: May 10, 2025
They were all sobered thoroughly by their experience. At last Rob spoke, standing up preparatory to the walk down the beach toward their old barabbara. "I know what I thought out there when she broke under us," said he; "and I know what I did, too." "Yes, and," said Jesse, as he and the others rose to follow him, "I know what I'm going to do before I go to sleep to-night, too.
"No," said Rob; "I found this little sack hidden back under the klipsies in the far end of the old barabbara up there. I suppose some native hid it there when they came down in the bay after their whale. Anyhow, we have been on meat diet so long that I will take the liberty of using these, no matter whom they belong to.
Now he made his answer by diving into the back of the barabbara and coming out with the curious bunch of thongs which the boys had noticed him carrying when they first encountered him on the beach a dozen thongs attached to a common centre, each being a couple of yards in length, and each bearing at its extremity a perforated ivory ball perhaps of an ounce or so in weight.
The thing for us to do is to keep them thinking that." "They'll be over before long," said John, "to see what has become of Jimmy, here, the man they were after." "I'm not so sure of that," rejoined Rob. "These natives forget any purpose very easily; and now, as we know, they are busy watching the whale. But suppose they do come. The barabbara is empty."
Following Rob's advice, each now busied himself at these different tasks. In the course of an hour they had a fire glowing at the centre of the barabbara, which now would otherwise have been quite dark. The smoke did not seriously trouble them after they had learned to keep down low on the floor. Each unrolled his blankets on the deep, sweet-scented grass near-by the fire.
"Now I've got a notion," said Rob, one morning not long after they had finished their new barabbara, "that if we were asked about this big island where we are living we couldn't tell very much regarding it. We've only been over a little strip of country around here.
"But now," said John one morning, as the three of them sat by the fireside in the barabbara, "we are a fine-looking lot, aren't we? Just look at us every one of us has got something the matter with him!" They all took a glance and broke out in a loud laugh together, in which Skookie joined uproariously. As a matter of fact, each one of them was wearing a bandage.
Which, indeed, was the case, for in the night, while they were all safely in the barabbara around the fire, the rain came as usual, sufficient to blot out all trace of their late work on the fox trails. The following morning the boys at once began to wonder what luck had met their trapping operations.
The chief now pushed his way into the hut, and, much to the annoyance of the white occupants, he was followed by a dozen other natives, who came crowding in and filling the place with the rank smell of wet fur and feathers. They seated themselves around the edge of the barabbara, and one of them presently began to make a fire. "Dis barabbara my peoples!" said the chief.
On the whole, I have noticed that every country knows how to build its own houses best. The natives here make barabbaras because they have material for that sort of house, and they seem to do pretty well, if they do smoke a little." "Suppose we build a barabbara, then," suggested Jesse. "Ask Skookie," suggested Rob.
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