Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/84

 78 THECRATER; which Mark had thrown the sweepings of the decks, into the dingui, and descended himself and took the sculls. The two then proceeded to Bob s rock, where, amid the screams of a thousand sea-birds, the honest fellow filled his bucket with as good guano, as was ever found on the coast of Peru. While the boat was at the rock, Mark saw that flfie pigs had run round to the western end of the island, snuffing at everything that came in their way, and trying in vain to root wherever one of them could insert his nose. As a hog is a particularly sagacious animal, Mark kept his eyes on them while Bob was picking out his guano, in the faint hope that they might discover fresh water, by means of their instinct. In this way he saw them enter the gate way of the crater, pigs being pretty certain to run their noses into any such place as that. On landing, Mark took a part of the tools and the bucket of guano, while Bob shouldered the remainder, and they went up to the hole, and entered the crater together, hav ing landed as near to the gate-way as they could get, with that object. To Mark s great delight he found that the pigs were now actually rooting with some success, so far as stirring the surface was concerned, though getting ab solutely nothing for their pains. There were spots on the plain of the crater, however, where it was possible, by breaking a sort of crust, to get down into coarse ashes that were not entirely without some of the essentials of soil. Exposure to the air and water, with mixing up with sea weed and such other waste materials as he could collect, the young man fancied would enable him to obtain a suffi ciency of earthy substances to sustain the growth of plants. While on the summit of the crater-wall, he had seen two or three places where it had struck him sweet-potatoes and beans might be made to grow, and he determined to ascend to those spots, and make his essay there, as being the most removed from the inroads of the pigs. Could he only suc ceed in obtaining two or three hundred melons, he felt that a great deal would be done in providing the means of checking any disposition to scurvy that might appear in Bob or himself. In this thoughtful manner did one so young look ahead, and make provision for the future.