"The wall this afternoon," said Grenville, as he finally concluded his simple repast with a drink of tepid water. "Then our mast and signal of distress must be erected. I shall try for fire directly. I must make a bow and some arrows. A clay pit I found will provide us with earthenware utensils, and then--if only I could manage to melt some brass---- You see, the worst of it is, no stone I've discovered on the place is fit to use for a tool." Elaine avoided the boyish gleaming of his gaze. "Are we thrust so far back as the stone age, then? It's really as bad as that?" "Bad?" he said. "It's tremendously diverting. I've got to begin, as it were, with my naked hands. But fortunately, I believe, for us, the bronze and stone ages lap," and he drew from his pockets some bits of the heterogeneous collection he had brought from the rotting barque. "You have found some metal?" Elaine inquired, excitedly. "But where?" "In a wreck that must have arrived here years ago." He related as much as he thought advisable and undisturbing to the thoroughly wondering girl. She could see no possible use for all the rusted bronze and brass he had earned away from the wreck so strangely discovered, but she made no discouraging comments to dampen an ardor which to her was not precisely comprehensible. "I hope I can help," she told him, as she had before. "I'm afraid I'm not very clever." "We'll see," he answered, cheerfully. "Necessity is rather a strict instructor." But she could not assist him with the wall, at which he was presently perspiring. The stones he rolled and carried to the narrowest shelf or ledge that was scaled by the trail were far too heavy for her delicate hands and muscles. "Can't I do something else?" she begged, eager for any employment. "There must be some work I could do." "You might plait a basket of some sort," he said. "We shall need some presently." He thereupon went below again, cut all he could carry of tough and limber creepers, and, fetching them up to the shade of her cave, instructed Elaine in such of the rudiments of basket-weaving as he himself could readily invent, and left her busily employed. The wall he required to prevent any possible night attack on the part of the beast that was already inclined to stalk either one of them, or both, was not of any considerable length, owing to the narrowness of the pass he had chosen to block with bowlders. He had, however, to make it thick and high. By taking advantage of three large blocks, which he rolled down hill to the place selected, he secured a substantial foundation with comparative ease. After that it became a matter merely of carrying stone after stone, from their inexhaustible supply on the summit, to lodge in rough, uneven tiers to the height desired. He had left a narrow gateway next the natural wall that made his structure complete. This he could block with a heavy log, or even more stones, for the night.