"Sure, do ye be thinkin' there moight be another of the same waitin' till grab me by the lig? I'm towld they loike an Irish lad betther than anything, save a black wan." "Oh, rats! Here, wait for me," and with the words Jack was on the shore, ready to make the hawser fast to a convenient tree. Then Jimmie, shamed by the boldness of his boatmate, consented to join him. A fire soon flashed up, fed with some of the handy fuel. "Things don't look quite so bad with a cheery blaze, eh, Jimmie?" asked the skipper of the marooned _Tramp_, as he glanced around at the weird picture that met his eyes in every direction. "Troth, they moight be worse, I suppose," the other admitted grudgingly; for already they were on short rations, and it may be remembered that Jimmie was blessed with an appetite second only to the wonderful capacity of Nick. "Tomorrow, remember," Jack went on, as he busied himself in various ways, "I'm going to begin to hunt in earnest all the while we're looking for an outlet. We may even find a fat wild turkey on one of these same hard timber ridges. I understand they're known to frequent such places." "What if we happen till run acrost a bear?" suggested Jimmie, anxiously. "Well, the chances are the bear would be ten times more scared than either of us, and put for the canebrake at top speed. Even if he tried to attack us, you must remember that a charge of shot delivered at close quarters can penetrate almost as well as a bullet. And I should aim for his eyes, or back of his fore leg." Jimmie sighed heavily. "Sure, I'd loike a bear steak just as much as Buster said he would; but p'raps, Jack, darlint, we'd better be contint wid 'possum, 'coon or muskrats." "Oh! just as you say, Jimmie. But we haven't run across our bear yet, so we can't tell just what we'd do. In cases like that, you know, a fellow has to be governed by circumstances. Suppose the beast was mad, and insisted on coming at us on his hind legs, ready to squeeze us like they often do? I would have to shoot then, wouldn't I?" The supper was soon in progress. Jimmie begrudged everything that they were compelled to cook. He would remark that the coffee was only going to last for five more meals; that the rice seemed low, and as for sugar, he doubted whether it would hold out much longer. But Jack was not to be disheartened, and had a laughing answer for each one of these dismal prophecies. "I do belave that the less ye have to ate the better it tastes," declared Jimmie, as he sat there polishing his pannikin, in which he had just had a third helping of rice, eaten without either milk or sugar this time. "That's right," laughed Jack. "And the smaller the amount of grub, the more you think you feel the gnawings of hunger. Suppose, now, we were cruising on a salt lagoon and our drinking water ran low--why, your throat would feel parched all the time, just from imagination."