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Rh want our things, and I reckon the boat will furnish us with all we will need to eat until we get back to civilized parts again."

"We don't want to lose a minit," burst out Gory. "If we do, thim haythins livin' in these parts will be afther claimin' the wreck, an' thin they won't lit us touch a thing."

"Can they do that?" I asked of the first mate.

"They can if they have the power," was Dawson's answer. "In this part of our globe, might is right in nine cases out of ten. We'll hurry all we can, and move directly for the wreck instead of going down to the old camp."

Apparently this was good advice, but in the end it proved to be just the opposite. We found that getting down the hill was more difficult than getting up, and once I took a tumble that landed me directly in the midst of a clump of nasty thorns. Matt Gory came after me, and both of us were stuck and scratched in more places than I care to mention.

"Oi'm stabbed!" he moaned. "Hilp me out av here! Ouch, be the powers, did anywan iver see such a hole as this fer darnin' nadles, now?"

The first mate helped us both, and after that we proceeded with more caution. Halfway down the hill we came upon a beautiful spring of water which was almost as cold as ice, and here drank our fill.