THE MUGGYWAH
The time came when Marian had to face the problem of clothing. Every
bathing-suit was worn to rags, and everything else was so near it that
there was no trusting anything. When the weather was cold they had
their wraps, and these covered a multitude of tattered sins, and none
of the tribe save Marian herself ever wore anything into the water any
more, but even with such economy there was no dodging the issue any
longer. Unless she were willing that her flock should revert to extreme
savagery in costumes, something had to be done.
Her first attempt was to crochet clothing out of fiber, but it took
so long to make a garment that way that she was always eagerly on the
alert for other modes. She remembered that soaking skins in wet ashes
would remove the hair. Old Mr. Faston had said so once. So she tried
it with some rabbit-skins. It worked very well. After being packed in
a little hollow of the rock with ashes and water all night, the fur
was easily pulled off. Then, when the ashes were washed off and the
skin was nearly dry, it could be rubbed and worked till it was soft and
pliable and Marian could begin dressmaking.
Rabbits were getting scarce in their immediate vicinity, however, and
the search for better hunting-grounds took them back to the mainland
again. They did not cross the harbor and go to climbing mountains this
time, however. They took the raft down the bay and followed one of the
winding _esteros_ that led between mango bushes, off and off, farther
and farther, twisting and turning and growing narrower and more and
more shallow till they came out into a comparatively level country,
with no hills near at hand, but great stretches of mud flats and
sandbanks and miles and miles of _pitalla_ and scrubby brush.
They took the raft as far as they could and tied it to some bushes and
proceeded afoot. They wandered several miles, taking care not to lose
their bearings. They found wagon-loads of fine _pitalla_ and some other
wood, rabbits galore, and a few stone or flint arrowheads, but no sign
whatever of human habitation.
Delbert shot eight big jack rabbits, Esther got three, and Jennie two,
thirteen in all. They decided that the unluckiness of the number was
for the rabbits, not for them. They took only the skins home with them,
for they did not need the meat, and they had plenty of other things to
carry back to the raft.
They loaded it with all the good dry _pitalla_ they could pile up and
tie on. Down close by the water, half buried in the salty mud, Delbert
found a stone hatchet. Once before he had found a broken one, but this
was perfect. He held it in his hand with a dreamy look on his face.
“How long ago do you s’pose it was, Marian, when they made ’em and used
’em like this one?”
“Mercy! I have no idea; hundreds of years at the least and like as not
a million.”
“Well, anyway, it’s mine now,” he said decidedly, as he dropped it into
the fiber bag.
“Yes, I think you can keep it with a clear conscience. Now, get on
here, all of you. Never mind that crab, Davie; you don’t need it,
anyway.”
They did not get home till the moon was well up.
There was probably stuff growing at her hand that would have given
those skins a good tan, if Marian had only known what it was and how
to use it, but she did not. The soaking in ashes did fairly well; only
if the skin got well wet afterwards, it would dry stiff unless it was
worked and kept pliable while drying. Of course there was no strength
in the rabbit-skins. They tore easily, but they were, nevertheless, a
material of which Marian could make simple clothes, so that they should
not be entirely naked if any one ever did come along. She made dresses
for the little girls first, the simplest style she could think of,
eliminating sleeves altogether and not continuing the skirts below the
knees.
She crocheted belts of fiber, and used it also to sew with, for her
supply of thread was very low indeed. There was no need of buttons; the
little girls just slipped the dresses over their heads, slipped their
arms through the generous armholes, belted the slight fullness at the
waist, and there you were--pretty as pictures, too.
The only foreign articles in the construction of those robes were the
belt-buckles, which Marian had contrived out of the fasteners of their
old stocking-supporters. Of course the elastic and the stockings had
worn out long ago. Every one was barefoot now except Marian, who was
near enough to it, but the soles of her shoes had been very thick and
good, and though the tops were worn out she still managed to use the
bottoms as sandals and thus had some protection to her feet, which
somehow she could never get toughened as the children’s were.
After several more trips up the _estero_ and more or less success in
hunting, they had enough rabbit-skins to make Marian a dress too. She
made it just as she had the other two, belting it with her red leather
belt, which she had worn for several years, but which was still as
strong as new. Her dress came a little below her knees.
The rabbit-skins were not at all satisfactory for Delbert. He was in
and out of the water so constantly, and climbed and scrambled over the
rocks so much, that a garment that must not be wet and that would not
stand strain was not at all what he needed.
He told Marian that all he wanted was a loin-cloth such as other
Indians wore, but Marian was not at all sure how loin-cloths were made
or worn. She thought about cutting off an end of one of the blankets,
but rather hated to do that; so she worked away with her hook and
the banana fiber till she had evolved what satisfied him. And when
he donned it and strode along, shirtless and barelegged, his hair
stringing over his shoulders and kept out of his eyes by a red rag tied
around his forehead, and the rag stuck full of feathers, he certainly
looked not unlike an aborigine of some sort.
Davie declined even a loin-cloth; simple nature unadorned suited him to
a T.
Thus, between the bananas and the rabbits, Marian managed to keep her
family clothed.
They took many trips to the mainland. There were several _esteros_ that
led far inland, and they explored them all. They became accustomed to
going without water. They always had _some_ with them, but it was such
a bother to take a lot of bottles along every time they stirred out
from home that they trained themselves not to want a drink every little
while. They would take a big drink before they left the Island in the
morning, and often no one would take another till noon. Also they
learned to go without much food in the middle of the day and to eat
that little raw.
Children are children the world over, I fancy. These had their little
games and plays, which Marian was always ready to foster. The little
girls and Davie used to put their dolls to bed every night, tucking
them in as carefully as they did themselves. Also the dolls were
usually carried with them, if they were making a trip of any great
length, lest they should get lonesome and frightened if left too long
alone. They traveled in a little fiber bag Jennie crocheted, and were
generally hung up on the mast where they were well out of the way of
the water, and if they went inland Jennie would wear the bag hung about
her neck.
When they went in swimming, the children would play they were
fishes and other water creatures and would imitate the different
characteristics as well as they could. Davie’s favorite
characterization was that of the crab. He would run sideways on
all fours and pinch the other children’s toes. He played this so
strenuously that he often made himself something of a nuisance and had
to be tactfully guided into other channels of thought.
They were all perfectly delighted when Marian taught them how to stay
under water as long as they pleased. On one of their inland trips they
had found some large hollow weed-stalks. They played with them at first
by simply blowing bubbles in the water and drawing up mouthfuls of
water which they blew out at each other, but when Marian showed them
that by holding one of the hollow tubes in the mouth one could stay
under water as long as he remembered to breathe always through the
mouth and to keep the top of the tube above the water, they invented
all kinds of games that the new trick could be used in.
Delbert could do it best. He declared he could lie under the water and
go to sleep, it was so easy. Marian did not advise him to try it. “You
might get to snoring and drown before you could wake up,” she told him.
Their novel clothing gave new impetus to their Indian play. There was
some discussion at first as to which tribe they belonged to. They
could not seem to recognize themselves as belonging to any they had yet
heard of and they finally invented a new one and called themselves the
tribe of the Hawks. Marian had been calling Delbert that for some time,
he was always so keenly on the alert for anything to eat. And when he
perched himself on a rock and fished patiently,--that was before they
lost the hook,--he reminded her of nothing so much as a fish hawk ready
to swoop.
They spent more and more time on the trips inland. They began to skirt
the hills a little. Davie was so big now that he did not seem to tire
out any quicker than Jennie, and the little feet were all so tough that
hard roads did not daunt them.
They saw no more cat-tracks, but Marian never forgot that one, and
because of it kept the tribe away from the high rocky hills and the
thick growth.
The country beyond the largest _estero_ became familiar to them for
several miles. There was a certain lagoon there that they liked to go
to in the rainy season,--and there was no lagoon there except in the
rainy season. There were beautiful blue pond-lilies in it. Marian dug
up some roots and planted them on the home Island.
They frequently found arrowheads and sometimes other stones, broken,
but showing the work of human hands upon them, all of which spoke
with certainty of bygone people, but never anything of modern times.
Near the lagoon were several low hills, and on these they found the
cotton-tree. This tree in its season produces big pods full of silky
white cotton, and though the yield is not so very abundant, nor the
quality so very fine, yet they saved every pod they could find, Delbert
and Esther often climbing up for those that could not be reached from
the ground with a pole.
“Some day I will invent a spinning-wheel and a loom,” said Marian, “and
we will make cloth.” And the children, remembering the rope-making
machine she had made, never doubted her ability.
Once, when they were about two miles from the end of the _estero_, they
found a good-sized tree that had blown down some years before on the
side of a little hill. It was larger than any tree growing there now
and seemed to have been alone among its dwarfish neighbors. It was too
heavy to be dragged all that distance, but if they could manage to chop
off the few limbs and the roots that stuck up so high, they could roll
it down to the _estero_ and float it home.
It was a big task, but because they had plenty of time on their hands
and no pressing social duties, and also because they needed that log
in their business, they made trip after trip, starting at daylight and
not getting home till nearly dark, chopped and chopped with the hatchet
until they had the log smooth enough to roll, and then rolled it over
and over all that distance and floated it home in triumph.
Then they set about improving the raft. The new log was a little
crooked, but otherwise was about the equal of the one they had captured
out in the bay. The three logs together would be much better than the
raft as it was. Delbert’s idea was to lash them together as they had
been doing, but Marian had thought of an improvement, though it almost
seemed as if it could not be done with their limited facilities. They
had already accomplished so many tasks that seemed hard, however, and
Delbert was such a bright and willing helper, and the little girls were
always so willing to contribute their share to any labor, that she told
Delbert that at any rate they would have a try at shipbuilding.
[Illustration: CHOPPED AND CHOPPED UNTIL THEY HAD THE LOG SMOOTH ENOUGH
TO ROLL]
Long and longingly she looked at the old canoe, but in the end left it
where it was in the corral fence. She could think of no way to combine
it with the logs to make a more serviceable craft.
The new log was rolled up on the beach beside the one they had found
out on the water, and then the raft was taken to pieces, and the log
in the middle of it was also rolled up on the beach. After they were
all fixed in just the right position, they were kept in place by stakes
driven into the ground.
The next thing was to make a new tool. Among the scraps of iron found
on the little egg island was one about an inch in diameter and nearly
three feet long when straightened out. It was round, an immense bolt
maybe, but rusted and bent and twisted. What Marian did first was to
heat it to straighten it out.
It was very hard to handle it when it was hot. She had an assortment of
green sticks and matted-fiber holders for this purpose. As when they
were making the fish-spear, they used a flat rock for an anvil and the
hatchet for a hammer, and after many heatings and hammerings they got
the iron straight with a blunt point on one end.
But straightening the bar was only the beginning of the work. She kept
the fire hot and heated the bar time after time, and burned three holes
entirely through the two outside logs and corresponding ones well into
the middle log. Then they took six of the toughest stakes they could
find, whittled them straight and smooth to the right size, and drove
them in through the burned holes like huge nails. Next they burned and
whittled a big hole down into the center log as a socket for the mast.
Then they picked out the best of the poles that had been in the raft
and set it in place and drove in wedges to hold it solid. This got rid
of the clumsy lashings and proppings, besides giving them a straight
instead of a crooked mast, and it was not difficult then to rig up a
sail that could be easily raised and lowered, using, of course, one of
the blankets for a sail as before.
The platform that they burned their _pitalla_ on when spearing next
demanded their attention. It was too clumsy and was always needing
repairs. Once out on the salt reef they had found a dead sea turtle
half buried in the sand. They had fished it out and fastened it with
stakes where it would not be washed away, though every tide would
cover it, and the elements combined with the scavengers of the sea to
clean the shell for them. With rocks and the hatchet they broke away
the under part of the shell, and the top part, about two and a half
feet in diameter, curved and dished, would hold the _pitalla_ nicely.
Two stout, widespread crotches were cut and driven tightly into burned
holes at one end of the projecting middle log, so that they supported
the inverted turtle-shell. It did not, however, rest firmly enough
till Marian had wired it to the crotches by means of the bail from the
old wooden bucket, which was passed through little holes burned in the
shell.
Away off up in the pasture they had found a place where the soil
partook of the nature of clay. They brought some from there, mixed it
to the right consistency and spread a coating all over the inside of
the turtle-shell. It dried without much cracking, and the fire would
harden it. This was a vast improvement over the old platform, which, in
spite of their best efforts had always been a trifle wobbly and evinced
a tendency to spill the fuel off into the water at the slightest
provocation.
Delbert thought they had their task about finished now, but Marian had
a great deal more to do to it still. She wanted to build on the other
end a platform of some sort, where they could put things and have them
stay dry. By burning holes and driving in stakes and then weaving in
with small, tough green sticks, she succeeded in making that end of the
raft look not unlike a huge basket. Then by filling that same basket
with dried seaweed and such material, which was bulky but light, she
had a place where things could be carried out of reach of the waves and
where a little girl could lie down if she was tired. Of course, the
waves slopped up and soaked through the seaweed to some extent when the
raft was in use, but when it was moored quietly to the beach the hot
sun dried it out pretty well.
When the raft was finished, their third rainy season on the island was
past. Marian was learning, and the others along with her, something of
the eternal patience of the universe. So long as she was accomplishing
her purpose, she did not count much on the time it took to do it.
They all thought the new raft was such a beauty that it deserved a
name. Marian suggested everything she could think of from “Fleet Wings”
to “Annabel Lee,” but they finally decided on Jennie’s choice, which
was “Muggywah.” She said it was Indian and meant something very safe
and strong that nobody could conquer. Where she got the name or the
notion Marian could not imagine, and she herself could not tell, but
the Muggywah became one of the family forthwith.
Out where the center log projected, at the turtle-shell end, Marian
burned the name. “Oh, we are getting wonderfully aristocratic,” she
told the children. “It is not every family that can have their own
private yacht.”
They went on a big spearing expedition when the Muggywah was finished.
The tide was just right, and the fish were plentiful. They got three
enormous red snappers and a lot of smaller fry, and it was the most
satisfactory trip they had ever made.
Marian sat Turk-fashion on the seaweed deck and steered with the broken
oar, which had been spliced to make it better to handle, and Davie
was in front of her, dry and warm. When he went to sleep, it was the
easiest thing in the world to tie him safely, for some of the stakes of
the basketwork had been left high for that especial purpose, and then
he did not have to be watched.
Jennie took the spear first, and when, after a while, she grew tired
and gave the spear to Esther, who had been teasing for it, she too
crept back and crawled in with Davie under the shawls and lay on her
back, watching the bright stars above and the mango bushes, weird and
grotesque with the flare of the _pitalla_ fire and the backward swirl
of the smoke. When the game became an old story to Esther, she yielded
the spear to Delbert, and, after replenishing the fire from the fuel in
the barrel, she too curled down on the deck at Jennie’s feet.
Delbert and Marian then took turns at steering and spearing, and only
turned the Muggywah back toward the pier when the fuel was all gone.
Along with their feathers the children took up other modes of Indian
decoration of their persons. They did not quite come to war paint, but
they wore long strings of beads, principally of the _guaymuchel_ seeds.
These are flat black seeds that grow embedded in a thick sweetish pith
enclosed in a pod which grows on a big tree. The pithy part is highly
prized by the Indians for eating, and the Island Hawks gathered them
for that, and saved the seeds, which, when soft, are easily strung.
Then there were the tiny many-colored clamshells that they found so
plentiful on the beaches of the bird islands. They bored holes in these
with Marian’s big fat darning-needle and strung them into valuable
wampum belts. There were other seeds and beans that they strung, but
these were the staples.
One Christmas, Marian gave Jennie a string of bone beads. She had found
a number of the bones of some big bird, long, smooth, and hollow, and
she whittled them into little sections and strung them on a string of
her own hair. That same year her gift to Esther was a headdress of
pink feathers taken from a dead bird that Delbert had found washed up
on the beach one morning. To Delbert she gave a gay feather-trimmed
quiver for his arrows and two new arrow-points of bone, and to Davie
a number of little toys whittled out of driftwood. The children had
remembered their kindergarten lore that year, and each one made Marian
a little basket. They were rather loose and ill-shapen, but they were
the forerunners of better ones.
With the Muggywah their food problem was still further simplified.
They had lived so long on the Island now that they knew the tides,
when they would be high and when low, and always took these into
consideration along with the wind. With their gay striped blanket for a
sail and a paddle of some sort in the hands of each, with their trips
planned to have the tide in their favor as much as possible, they
could accomplish much more business than formerly. They could take a
dishpanful of boiled-down sea-water out to the salt reef, put it into
the rock-hollows there, where the sun finished the evaporation for
them, and maybe gather up a dish of dry and quite passably clean salt
to take back with them; go on to some other place and gather a lot of
clams for dinner, or perhaps oysters; go back again to Smugglers’,
put up the salt and attend to the clams, and strike off across the
bay toward some distant _estero_, which would lead back into good
_pitalla_ country, or perhaps to a _panal_ which they had seen some
days before and been too busy to gather in; and by night they would
have accomplished several times as much as when they had crept over
the water on the old log with only driftwood and poles for paddles, or
else had had to stay on land because the water was a little rough. With
the new firm mast which was in no danger of falling down, they could
utilize a wind that had been much too strong for them to tamper with
before, and with the children able to swim like little fishes, they
could brave a possible capsize or tumble overboard. Of course Marian
was not going to risk the great waves outside in the Gulf, and when the
wind blew the water into breakers on the Island, white and thunderous,
she kept her tribe busy in the pasture or the garden.
Some time during each day they took their bath and swim. If the water
was too rough on the seaward side, they took it in the harbor, where
it was quieter, but there were not so very many days when it was too
rough. Marian would keep her eye on Davie if they were out very far,
but she had little anxiety about the others. Sometimes they took the
Muggywah out into deep water and anchored her with a stone, and had
their swim from there.
They had had no storm yet equal to the one on the night of their
arrival on the Island, but during the fall after the Muggywah was
finished they had one which came nearer to it than any in the three
years. It lasted two days and two nights and certainly gave them a
miserable time. They turned the little burros out with their mothers
to save feeding and milking, and they collected vegetables and bananas
in the Cave, which they ate raw, not being able to have a fire to cook
by. Indeed, their precious embers were all put out, so that they had to
start anew with the fire-sticks when the storm was over.
They snuggled up in the Cave, not going out except when it seemed
absolutely necessary, and Marian sang over all the songs she knew and
which she had sung to them on rainy days a hundred times before,--or at
least it seemed so to her,--and told over all the stories they called
for and racked her brains for new ones.
The Cave had never been a roomy chamber, and now it reminded Marian of
a nest that is filled to overflowing with nestlings which are ready to
fly. Neither of the little girls could stand up in it now, not even in
the widest part, and Davie, fast growing up into a big, strong boy, had
to be very careful.
The first day dragged, the second crawled, and in the afternoon Marian
delivered herself of the emphatic remark, “We are not going to live in
this Cave through another rainy season; we will build us a house!”
The children were all struck dumb for a second and then fired volleys
of comments and questions.
“You see,” said Marian when quiet reigned again, “this Cave was all
right in the first place. You were all little then, and it was the
best we could do, but now,--why, see! Delbert is stretching up nearly
as tall as I am; Jennie and Esther take up as much room as all four of
you did then; we spread out so we can’t keep ourselves covered from the
mosquitoes; and I am sick and tired of camping out forever; I want a
home.”
“But, Marian,” said Jennie, “don’t you think some one will find us now
before long?”
“I think,” said Marian, “that there is no likelihood of any one but
Indians coming into San Moros. There is nothing to bring any one else
here, and, as you know, we have seen very few canoes in all the time we
have been here. I don’t understand it; it seems as if they would all
know about there being bananas and good water here and be coming all
the time, but evidently there are no settlements anywhere near, and the
poor Indian is not going very far from home in his canoe. Clarence must
have found out about the place from some old Indian who, I suppose, had
happened to stumble on to it somehow, and, as far as I know, Clarence
was the only white person who ever came here, but”--she paused and
looked impressively at the children--“some day, when we can sail the
Muggywah a great deal better than we do now, when Davie is big and
strong enough so that I dare risk him out there on the Gulf waves, and
when the rest of you are bigger and stronger than you are now, we’ll
stock the Muggywah up with provisions and we’ll go back to the Port
ourselves. I don’t dare risk it overland and I shall not try it by
water so long as there is any risk in it, but if no one comes for us
before then, the time will come when you children will be so big that
we can go in safety, and then we’ll go.”
“I’d be willing to take some risk,” said Delbert moodily.
“I’m not,” said Marian. “Four children mother left in my care when she
went to Guaymas that time, four I shall return to her. Your lives are
safe here. If I lost one of you in trying to get back, I should never
be happy again.”
“How well shall we have to swim?” asked Esther.
“Better than any of us do now,” said Marian. “We must be able to swim
so well that if the Muggywah should swamp or turn turtle out there, we
could all get to shore if we had to. It is a good deal, but we can do
it in time. Clarence could have done it, but it may take us several
years yet. We don’t dare go out of the bay yet, and we all get tired
out if we have much hard paddling to do; but to go to the Port in the
Muggywah would take several days. Unfortunately, she doesn’t go as
swiftly as the launch did.”
“If Clarence was here, he’d make her go better than she does,” said
Delbert.
“I think he would,” returned Marian; “but what we don’t know about
sailing her we must learn; and meantime, I am tired of living in this
little hole in the rocks, and the next job on hand is to build a house.
We can do it.”
The first thing to do usually is to select a site. Esther thought a
good place to put the new dwelling in would be down by the pier, where
the smugglers had had their house. It would be close to the water and
the garden. But that took them out of sight of the bay and the distant
Gulf, and mosquitoes and gnats were apt to be plentiful there at night,
and so it was not to be thought of. Jennie, too, still retained her
fear of the water during storms, and the higher they could get the
better it would suit her. One thing about the Cave which they meant to
improve upon in their new habitation was the fact that their view was
cut off by the big rock in front. To see what might be out on the water
they had to go clear past it, out of the house, as one might say. Of
course, it sheltered them from wind and rain to a great extent, but
Marian wanted to be sheltered from the elements and still be able to
see out on the water.
From the mound that had been the smugglers’ house projected a crotched
timber, and Marian suggested that they dig it out for their new
dwelling, though she had not yet decided where to build nor what
material to use.
They made some wooden rakes and shovels,--that is, they called them
that,--and these did a little better for the work than the old
dig-spoon and the little spade. As they dug and scraped, Marian told
them of the ancient cities which lay buried for centuries and then
were sometimes discovered and excavated and of the wonderful things
found in them. The children were very much interested, and straightway
they ceased to be Indians and became a band of eminent scientists
who had discovered an ancient, oh, a very ancient, city. It was very
interesting indeed, for, when you came to think of it, there was really
no knowing what you might or might not find.
They finally got the timber out. It was shorter than Marian had hoped,
but then the children wanted to go on and dig the whole mound over.
They had found a few bits of broken pottery, which they seemed to think
very wonderful, and they hoped for more riches.
So, as it seemed a pity to veto anything so exciting, Marian consented
to go on with the work. It seemed almost strange that they did not
find more things than they did. There were a number of other timbers
unearthed, but all but one of them were too rotten to be of use. There
was the half of a _metate_ stone[5] which they made a great deal of
use of afterwards, and a broken pitcher and more pieces of pottery,
but none of it big enough to be of any use. There were some very small
fragments of glass and quite a number of bricks; also a few rusty
scraps of iron, one of which had been an oarlock and one a knife. The
bricks were mixed in with a number of stones, all bearing the marks of
fire,--a cooking-place of some sort evidently.
[5] A stone used for grinding Indian corn.
The children were most excited over the pitcher. It had a gay flower
on one side of it, and they watched eagerly for other fragments. They
found a few and fitted them together, but when all was done there was
still a hole in it as big as Delbert’s fist and a piece gone from the
nose, but they took as much pride in that old fragment as if it had
been really something valuable.
But to Marian the bricks appealed the most. She meant to have a real
fireplace in the new house, and they would aid very much. The crotched
timber, short though it was, would also come in very handy, and the
ground they had dug over so industriously was in fine condition for a
garden.
Every day they took their swimming-lesson. Now they began to practice
on long swims. They would take the Muggywah out, and while Marian or
Delbert paddled it along, or tended the sail if there was a breeze, the
rest would swim by the side. As soon as one got tired, all he had to
do was to climb in and take his turn with the paddle. Even Davie was
learning a little about paddling, and Jennie and Esther, now eleven and
nine years old, could manage very nicely.
Out on the blue water they made a pretty picture,--the Muggywah dancing
along with her gay striped sail, Marian in a garment constructed of
her old brown petticoat which reached to her knees but left neck and
arms bare, Davie’s old straw hat tied under her chin, her long braids
falling to her waist as she steered with the oar; the four children,
their slender bodies gleaming white in the water, splashing each other,
laughing, calling, now and again climbing on the seaweed deck to rest a
few minutes before plunging down again into the salty waves.
And when they had been out long enough, they would turn the Muggywah
and run for Smugglers’, pretending they were fleeing from their
enemies,--smugglers escaping from the government revenue men maybe, or
Indians returning from striking some decisive blow at their tribal foes.
Always there were the little burros to be tended, a little gardening to
be done each day, fresh water to be carried up to the Cave, and wood to
be gathered. Marian had learned that as long as she worked with them
her tribe did very well, but it was not well to leave them at separate
tasks. She still felt, too, the desire to have them within her reach,
to know for a certainty where each one was and that he or she was
safe. So they fished together, gathered wood together, worked together
in the garden.
Delbert sometimes went to the pasture alone when Marian was busy with
something else, yet as a rule he took Esther with him even there.
Jennie was more apt to stay with Marian, to help with the cooking, or
maybe just to sit on the rocks gazing out over the sea. As for Davie,
he stayed with Marian too. Delbert never wanted him along when he was
after game, for the little fellow was sure to make some sort of a
noise at the wrong time, which Delbert always found hard to forgive,
while Esther, on the other hand, would follow at his heels like a
well-trained dog, moving silently, stealthily, and her aim was nearly
equal to his own.