Roger stayed where he was, and presently began to amuse himself by gathering small driftwood and dead reeds that were stuck among the rocks, and had been drying there since the last time the lake was high after the rains.
At last Titty began to lose hope again. She came back to the fallen tree and Roger with his growing pile of fuel.
“Do light it, Titty,” said Roger.
The able-seaman looked at it.
“That’s not the way,” she said. “We’ll make a fireplace like the one Susan made on the shore that day we saw the savages and the snake. Then we’ll light a fire in it, and Captain Flint and the others will see the smoke of our fire on the desert island far away. Then they’ll come, and there’ll be a rescue.”
She began building with small stones.
“We need a good big stone to go at the back,” she said.
She pulled at a biggish flat stone close by the roots of the old tree. It moved easily, and as it moved all thought of making fireplaces flew out of Titty’s mind.
“Help, Roger,” she shouted. “Where’s the pickaxe?”
She had put the hammer down when she began to build the fireplace. Roger picked it up and gave it to her. Titty tapped with it at a black corner of iron that showed under the stone she had moved. It rang of metal and wood. She pulled the stone further, and it was clear that she had uncovered the iron-bound corner of a box.
“We’ve found it, we’ve found it, we’ve found it,” shouted Titty. She pulled the stone right away to one side, and there was a torn label on the