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Rh said Americans are aiding the Cubans, and if we didn't look out Spain would punish us for it."

This caused Dawson to laugh. "Ha! ha! The idea of Spain doing anything to Uncle Sam," he said. "I reckon we can take care of ourselves, every trip."

How right he was later events proved.

As there were now six of us, we worked with more confidence. Each of us had a good club, and we provided ourselves with stones that were jagged of edge, to use in case of sudden attack. Ah Sid also made himself a sling shot out of a pliable tree branch and showed us what he could do with this weapon by bringing down a pigeon with a stone at a distance of fifty yards.

It was nearly nightfall by the time we had brought in our birds, pigeons, and fish and cooked them. In the meantime Watt Brown had been as good as his word and had rigged up a small mast and a sail on the Mollie, as he had dubbed the craft. The sky was clear and it promised to be moonlight, and we decided to leave the coast as soon as we had eaten supper, which would be our last meal on shore for probably three or four days, if not a week.

"We must keep our eyes peeled for those Tagals," remarked Tom Dawson, as we squatted around the camp-fire. "If we don't they may surprise us, and then our cake will be dough."