Part 20 (1/2)

”How's that?” demanded Blake, not a little puzzled. He was fully conscious of the risk; but this was the first intimation he had received or conceived that his motives were other than selfish--”Um-m! So that's the ticket. Getting generous, eh?”

”Not getting--you _are_ generous! When I think of all you have done for us! Had it not been for you, I am sure we should have died that first day ash.o.r.e.”

”Well, don't blame me. I couldn't have let a dog die that way; and then, a fellow needs a Man Friday for this sort of thing. As for you, I haven't always had the luck to be favored with ladies' company.”

”Thank you, Mr. Blake. I quite appreciate the compliment. But now, I must put on supper.”

Blake followed her graceful movements with an intentness which, in turn, drew Winthrope's attention to himself. The Englishman smiled in a disagreeable manner, and resumed his work on the bows, with the look of one mentally preoccupied. After supper he found occasion to spend some little time among the bamboos.

When at sunset Miss Leslie withdrew into the baobab, Winthrope somewhat officiously insisted upon helping her set up her screen in the entrance.

As he did so, he took the opportunity to hand her a bamboo knife, and to draw her attention to several double-pointed bamboo stakes which he had hidden under the litter.

”What is it?” she asked, troubled by his furtive glance back at Blake.

”Merely precaution, you know,” he whispered. ”The ground in there is quite soft. It will be no trouble, I fancy, to put up the stakes, with their points inclined towards the entrance.”

”But why--”

”Not so loud, Miss Genevieve! It struck me that if any one should seek to enter in the night, he would find these stakes deucedly unpleasant.

Be careful how you handle them. As you see, the sharper points, which are to be set uppermost, run off into a razor edge. Put them up now, before it grows too dark. You know how ninepins are set--that shape.

Good-night! You see, with these to guard the entrance, you need not be afraid to go to sleep at once.”

”Thank you,” she whispered, and began to thrust the stakes into the ground as he had directed.

He had not been mistaken. The vague doubts and fears which she already entertained would have kept her awake throughout the night, but thanks to the sense of security afforded by the sword-bayonets of her silent little sentries, the girl was soon able to calm herself, and was fast asleep long before Blake wakened Winthrope.

Immediately after breakfast, Blake--who had spent his watch in grinding the edges from a stone and experimenting with split and bent twigs--put Winthrope's keys in the fire, and began an attempt to shape them into a knife-blade. To heat the steel to the required temperature, he used a bamboo blowpipe, with his lungs for bellows.

Winthrope turned away with an indifferent bearing; but Miss Leslie found herself compelled to stop and admire his dexterous use of his rude tools.

One after another, the keys were welded together, end to end, in a narrow ribbon of steel. The thinnest one, however, was not fastened to the tip until it had been used to burn a groove in the edge of a rib, selected from among the bones which Miss Leslie had thrown out of the baobab.

The last key was then fastened to the others; the blade ground sharp, tempered, and inserted in the groove. Finally, pieces of the key-ring were fitted in bands around the bone, through notches cut in the ends of the steel blade. The result was a bone-handled, bone-backed knife, with a narrow cutting edge of fine steel.

Long before it was finished Miss Leslie had been forced away by the requirements of her own work. In fact, Blake did not complete his task until late in the afternoon. At the end, he spent more than an hour grinding the handle into shape. When he came to show the completed knife to Miss Leslie, he was fairly aglow with justifiable pride.

”How's that for an Eskimo job?” he demanded. ”Bunch of keys and a bone, eh?”

”You are certainly very ingenious, Mr. Blake!”

”Nixy! There's little of the inventor in my top piece--only some hustle and a good memory. I was up in Alaska, you know. Saw a sight of Eskimo work.”

”Still, it is very skilfully done.”

”That may be--Look out for the edge! It'd do to shave. No more bamboo splinters for me--dull when you hit a piece of bone. I'm ready now to skin a rhinoceros.”

”If you can catch one!”

”Guess we could find enough of them around here, all right. But we'll start in on some of Win's sheep and cattle.”