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Among the fust of the Injins we overtook and killed was a chap with Dick's scalp hanging at his girdle, and when it was known as he was alive they searched and found it; and one of the soldiers who was fond of collecting bird-skins, and such like, just preserved it in the same way, and when Dick was able to go out again he presented him with his own scalp.
GAFFETT WITH HIS good bunk and the bird-skins, the story of the wreck of the Minerva, the human-shaped creatures of fog and cobweb, the great words of Milton with which he described their onslaught upon the crew, all this moving tale had such an air of truth that I could not argue with Captain Littlepage.
He had been on one of those English exploring parties that found one end of the road to the north pole, but never could find the other. We lived like dogs in a kennel, or so you'd thought if you had seen the hut from the outside; but the main thing was to keep warm; there were piles of bird-skins to lie on, and he'd made him a good bunk, and there was another for me.
You take my advice, now, and just go from port to port with me, and you can buy all you want for a few dollars; and that'll be better than going up country and catching fevers. There's lots o' bird-skins to be bought." Uncle Dick laughed good-humouredly. "Why, captain," he said, "I might just as well have stopped in London and bought a few bird-skins down by the docks." "A deal better, doctor.
At this time they were, as you know, clad in their strange "sack" garments of bird-skins; but even before we reached the Ord River these began to shrink to such an extent that the wearers were eventually wrapped as in a vice, and were scarcely able to walk. Yamba then made some make-shift garments out of opossum skins.
"and the beach-comber drank, in silence, to the illustrious dead. "Who shot him?" "A scientific kind of poop, a botanizing shaloot that was travelling around with a tin box on his back, collecting beetles and bird-skins. Poor Thompson! this was how it happened. He was the strongest fellow I ever saw; he could tear a whole pack of cards across with his hands. That man was all muscle.
Lucien and l'Encuerado, who had risen earlier, had already explored the ravine, led by the youngest of the children; for the elder ones worked, according to their several abilities, at collecting wood or cultivating the fields. Our first care was to unpack the insects and bird-skins we had collected, and the whole colony now surrounded us and asked us innumerable questions.
I was left behind with the women and children and about a dozen men. These men busied themselves with some work over bird-skins; the women were occupied with some other work over feathers. No one took any notice of me. There did not seem to be any restraint upon me, nor was I watched in any way. Once the nightmare hag came and offered me a small roasted fowl, about the size of a woodcock.
The naturalist appeared as delighted to have secured the moth uninjured as most people would have been to pick up a nugget of gold. By degrees we had expended a portion of our ammunition and provisions; but as Lejoillie added to his collection, our loads were not much lightened, though his bird-skins, moths, and insects were not very weighty articles.
The bird-skins had been carefully cleaned from fat, and sewed into two blankets about seven feet by five each, and stretched on the ice with the flesh side uppermost, were rubbed with salt and ashes, and then exposed to the sun, receiving considerable benefit thereby.
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