- you listen long enough and you come to the conclusion that the sooner
all the big stones are cut up, the better."

"I bet this one isn't gone," said Pete. "Anybody take me? That's the
contrariety of the beasts - they won't stay lost. We'll find that stone
yet - where among our loot. The first thing we know, we'll be all
knifing each other to get it."

"Time's up," called Frank Merrill. "Sorry to drive you, but we've got to
keep at it as long as the light lasts. After to-day, though, we need
work only at high water. Between times, we can explore the island - " He
spoke as if he were wheedling a group of boys with the promise of play.

"Select a site for our capital city" - Honey Smith helped him out
facetiously - "lay out streets - begin to excavate for the church,
town-hall, schoolhouse, and library."

"The first thing to do now," Frank Merrill went on, as usual, ignoring
all facetiousness, "is to put up a signal."

Under his direction, they nailed a pair of sheets, one at the southern,
the other at the northern reef, to saplings which they stripped of
branches. Then they went back to the struggle for salvage.

The fascination of work - and of such novel work - still held them. They
labored the rest of the morning, lay off for a brief lunch, went at it
again in the afternoon, paused for dinner, and worked far into the
evening. Once they stopped long enough to build a huge signal fire on
the each. When they turned in, not one of them but nursed torn and
blistered hands. Not one of them but fell asleep the instant he lay