It did not take them long to pitch the little tent and collect materials for a fire, which Kooga lighted without difficulty by means of an old-fashioned flint and steel, his tinder being now perfectly dry. Drift-wood was so scarce on that side of the island that they were obliged to content themselves with a very small blaze. It was sufficient, however, to boil water for a kettle of tea, and this, with a few strips of dried venison toasted on the coals, constituted a meal that even Phil declared was better than some he had eaten.
After dinner, as there were still some hours of daylight left and no schooner was in sight, Serge, wishing to try for a halibut with one of his home-made hooks, proposed to Kooga to take him a short distance from shore in the bidarkie――a proposal to which the latter readily acceded.
So they went fishing, and Phil, still incredulous as to their success with such rude tackle, sat on the edge of a precipitous cliff and watched them. As he sat there he could not help feeling very lonely and rather homesick. His thoughts turned towards the father whom he loved so dearly. He wondered if he were very anxious about him, and whether he had gone to Victoria to search for him, or were still awaiting his coming in Sitka.
“Oh dear,” sighed the lad, “how wretchedly I have mixed things up, anyway! Just as Aunt Ruth said I would, too. No matter. I’m on the right track at last, and I must reach Sitka very soon now. If I don’t, it won’t be my fault, anyhow. I wonder if Aunt Ruth has heard that I am lost, and what she would say if she could see me at this minute.”
With this he glanced about him, and the vastness of his own surroundings filled him with a sense of his own insignificance and weakness. Before him was out-spread the limitless Pacific, whose mighty billows surged and thundered against the black rocks hundreds of feet below. In the immeasurable distance the sun was sinking beneath the heaving waters. Behind him towered a range of frowning mountains, their gaunt frames seared and riven by the Plutonic forces whose ominous banner still floated from Shishaldin’s lofty crest. A few sea-fowl circled and screamed about his head. How terrible it was to be there alone! Phil laughed for human companionship, and wished the other fellows would come back.
