RUDOLF DUNBAR’S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF

Cal and Larry were right. Both out of a sense of duty to his entertainers and because of a not unnatural impulse to tell of his unusual mode of life, Dunbar began the very next morning to talk freely of his experiences.

“It is proper that I explain to you how I came to be here without the means of getting away again,” he said at breakfast. “Indeed, I was a little troubled in my mind last night when I remembered that I had received your kindly offer of rescue without telling you that. But in my anxiety to get away from your bivouac and let you sleep, I forgot it.

“You see my entire life is spent in the woods or upon the water. I go wherever there is promise of anything to reward the labors of a naturalist, and when I heard of this long-abandoned plantation, where for twenty-five years or so Nature has had things all her own way, I knew a visit would be richly worth while. So I purchased a little rowboat and came over here about three or four weeks ago. I cannot fix the time more definitely because I never can keep accurate account of the days or weeks, living alone in the woods as I do and having no engagements to fulfill. I pulled my boat up on the beach a little way, selected a place in which to live, and proceeded to remove my things from the boat to the place chosen. Unfortunately, just as I had finished doing so, a peculiar moth attracted my attention—a moth not mentioned or described in any of the books, and quite unknown to science, I think. I went at once in chase of it, but it led me a merry dance through the thickets, and it was two hours, I should say—though I carry no timepiece—before I caught the creature. In the meanwhile I had forgotten all about my boat, and when I got back I saw it drifting out to sea with quite a strong breeze to aid the tide in carrying it away. It seems the tide had reached the flood during my absence, setting the boat afloat, and had then begun to ebb, carrying her away.

“There was nothing to be done, of course, but hoist my little flag, union down, and go on with the very interesting task of studying the habits of my new moth, of which I have since found several specimens, besides three cocoons which I am hatching in the hope that they will prove to belong to the species. I’ve been hard at work at that task ever since, and I have made some very interesting discoveries with regard to that moth’s choice of habitat. I made the most important one the night before you arrived. That is why I got no sleep that night.”

“Let us hope,” said Cal, “that the excitement of it did not interfere with your rest last night.”

“Oh, not at all. I am never excited, and I can sleep whenever I choose. I have only to lie down and close my eyes in order to accomplish that.”

“Then you have a shelter or hut up there somewhere—though we saw none?”

“Oh, no. I never sleep under shelter of any kind; I haven’t done so for more than twenty years past. Indeed, that is one of the conditions upon which I live at all. My health is good now, but it would fail me rapidly if I slept anywhere under a roof.”

“But when these heavy subtropical rains come?” asked Dick.

“Ah, I am prepared for them. I have only to spread one rubber cloth on the ground and a much thinner one over my blanket, and I take no harm.”

“Your specialty then is the study of butterflies and moths?” asked Dick.

“No, not at all. Indeed I have no specialty. When I was teaching I held the chair of Natural History, with several specialists as tutors under my general direction. When my health broke down—pray, don’t suppose I am going to weary you with a profitless catalogue of symptoms—I simply had to take to the woods. I had nobody dependent upon me—nobody for whom it was my duty to provide then or later. I had a little money, very little, but living as I do I need very little, and my work yields me a good deal more than I need or want. The little rifle I always have with me provides me with all the food I want, so that I am rarely under expense on that account.”

“But you must have bread or some substitute,” said Tom.

“I do not find it necessary. When I have access to starchy foods—of which there are many in tropical and subtropical forests if one knows how to find and utilize them—I eat them with relish, but when they are not to be had I get on very well without them. You see man is an omnivorous animal, and can live in health upon either starchy or flesh foods. It is best to have both, of course, unless the starchy foods are perverted as they so often are in civilized life, and made ministers to depraved appetites.”

“May I ask just how you mean that?” asked Dick.

“Yes, certainly. The starch we consumed last night in the form of sweet potatoes was altogether good for us; so is that we are taking now in these ship biscuits. But if the flour we are eating had been mixed with lard, sugar, eggs, milk and the like, and made into pastry, we should be greatly the better without it.

“However, I’m not a physician, equipped to deliver a lecture on food stuffs and their preparation. I was betrayed into that by your question. I was explaining the extreme smallness of my personal needs. After food, which costs me nothing, comes clothing, which costs me very little.”

“Why certainly you are expensively dressed for woodland wandering,” said Dick. Then instantly he began an apology for the reference to so purely personal a matter, but Rudolf Dunbar interrupted him.

“No apology is due. I was voluntarily talking of my own personal affairs, and your remark was entirely pertinent. My garments are made of very costly fabrics, but as such materials endure all sorts of hard usage and last for a very long time, I find it cheaper in the end to buy only such; more important still is the convenience of it, to one leading the sort of life I do. Instead of having to visit a tailor three or four times a year, I have need of his services only at long intervals. The garments I now have on were made for me in London three years or so ago, and I have worn no others since. In the meanwhile I have been up the Amazon for thousands of miles, besides visiting Labrador and the southern coast of Greenland.

“That brings me to my principal item of expense, which is the passage money I must pay in order to get to the regions I wish to explore. That costs me a good deal at each considerable removal, but in the meanwhile I have earned greatly more by my work.

“But pardon me for prosing so about myself. I’ll say not another word now, so that you young gentlemen may be free to make whatever use you wish of this superb day. I shall spend the greater part of it in figuring some specimens with my colored crayons. Good morning!”