For a time the boys sat silent and moody in the barabbara. The situation, as it appeared to them, was not a pleasant one. On the one side were half a hundred natives, whose intentions they could only guess; upon the other, as they now suspected, there might be an active enemy whose whereabouts they could only surmise. At last Rob spoke.

“It looks this way to me,” said he: “we three could not make any kind of defence against that band of natives, but perhaps they will not attack us. From what has happened, I do not think they will. Now, here is tea and salt which we got from them. That proves that they trade with the whites, which means that help may not be more than a hundred miles away at farthest. In the second place, these people think that we are here alone for only a short time and that our friends will soon be here. The thing for us to do is to keep them thinking that.”

“They’ll be over before long,” said John, “to see what has become of Jimmy, here, the man they were after.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” rejoined Rob. “These natives forget any purpose very easily; and now, as we know, they are busy watching the whale. But suppose they do come. The barabbara is empty.”

“They have not seen Jimmy at all as yet,” said John. “But suppose the bidarka is gone—he very probably took that with him.”

“Let’s go see,” suggested Jesse, and accordingly they hurried to the side of the lagoon. Sure enough, only the dory remained. The bidarka had disappeared from its resting-place.

“Now,” reasoned Rob, “he would be afraid to go out of the creek into the open bay, for then they would see him sure. There is every chance that he left the bidarka somewhere in the creek. We’ll hunt for it, then. I’ll go across in the shallow water, and we’ll search both sides of the bank. One thing sure is that Jimmy went in a hurry, because he left his gun behind. He can’t have had anything along more than his bow and arrows. We’ll know when we find the bidarka.”

So saying, they separated, and began to scour both sides of the creek, without success, however, until they nearly reached the mouth. Here, hidden in the tall grass on the farther side of the creek and close to the high rock wall near the mouth of the stream, Rob stumbled across the missing boat. With a shout he called to the others to halt, and presently, pushing the bidarka out into the creek, he paddled across to them. They all joined now in examining the contents of the boat.

“It’s just as I said,” commented Rob. “He left in a hurry, and badly scared. He could just as well have taken one of our guns as not, but we know he did not do that, and even left his own. Here’s his spear and his paddles. His blankets are back at the hut. So far as I can see, he took only his fishing-line and his bow and arrows.”

“Yes, but he may come back again,” suggested Jesse.

“I hardly think so,” reasoned Rob. “At any rate, he’ll not come back so long as these people hang around, because he knows they’re after him. Besides, the fact that he didn’t steal anything from us shows that he is getting scared about stealing. I’m not so uneasy about him as I am about these other fellows over on the beach.”

None too happy, the boys now proceeded to paddle the bidarka up the creek to its old resting-place in the lagoon, after which they busied themselves rather half-heartedly about camp work, a part of which was further fleshing of the bear hides. As they were engaged at this they heard a faint rustling in the dry grass near at hand. Startled, they looked around, and saw something staring at them from the cover. John reached for his rifle.

“Don’t shoot!” called Rob. “It’s a boy! I see his face plainly now.”