"Wheat, as I'm a living boy!" exclaimed Winn, stooping and gathering some of the stuff in his hands. "Wheat! but where can it have come from? Did the _Venture_ suddenly break up and go to pieces after all, as Mr. Gilder said she would?" If so, then the situation was worse than he had supposed, for until now the boy had entertained some hopes of being able to follow and perhaps recover the raft, especially if his father should come along and discover him. But if the raft were broken up, as the presence of this wheat seemed to indicate, then its loss was indeed total and irreparable. "But if they have not gone off with the raft, what has become of those river traders?" argued the boy with himself. "They might have followed the broken sections, or even gone off on one of them. I believe that's what they have done!" he exclaimed aloud. "That accounts for their leaving in such a hurry, and taking their provisions with them. I didn't think that Gilder was such a bad sort of a chap after all. Now he is pretty sure to come back for me after he has secured what he can from the wreck. But what am I to do for something to eat in the mean time? If I could only catch a fish!" Just then there was a great commotion in the water, and the pole left sticking in the bank began to bend ominously. Winn sprang towards it; but as he stretched out his hand it flew back into position, and the flurry in the water subsided. The wretched line had parted, and the big catfish, from which the boy could have made such a capital supper, was seeking the deepest hole in the river. The worst of it all was that he had taken Winn's only hook with him, and so put an end to any further efforts for his capture. The boy could have cried with hunger and vexation. It wouldn't have done him any good, though, and he knew it; so he began to gather a tin cup full of the water-soaked wheat instead. This he set on a bed of coals to boil, and was so hungry that he could not wait for it to be done, but ate it half raw, without salt, butter, sugar, syrup, milk, or anything that serves to render such food palatable, and only partially cooked at that, it still seemed to Winn one of the best things he had ever eaten, and he immediately started the cooking of another mess. There was not much of the wheat in sight, and to secure a second cupful the boy scraped up every grain that he could find. "After this comes starvation," thought Winn; "unless I can get away from this island, and I am going to begin work on that raft at once."