“They may have been killed and eaten by other natives,” said Titty.
“Anyhow, this is the best place for a camp,” said John. “Let’s put the tents up at once.”
So they set about making their camp. They brought the tent bundles up from the landing-place and unrolled them. They chose four trees on the side of the fireplace nearest to the big pine. “The high ground will shelter them from the north,” said John. Then he climbed about seven feet up the trunk of a tree, and fastened one end of one of the tent ropes. Susan held the other end until he had climbed up another tree, when he fastened it at about the same height. The rope, of course, sagged in the middle, so that the tent was only about five feet high. The rope was not made too taut, because the dew at night would make it shrink. The tent now hung down on both sides of the rope like a sheet put to dry. The next thing to do was to fill its pockets with stones. As soon as there were a few stones in the pockets that were at the bottom of each side of the tent, it was easy to keep the walls apart. But to make sure that the tent was firmly set up they carried a great many stones from the beach, besides the stones they picked up under the trees, so that all round the two sides and back of the tent there was a row of stones in the pockets keeping the tent walls properly stretched.
“It’s a good thing mother made this sort of tent,” said Susan. “The rock is close under the ground everywhere, and we could never have driven any pegs in.”
The next thing was to drag the groundsheet into the tent and spread it. As soon as that was done, they all crowded in.
“Good,” said Susan. “You can just see the fireplace from inside.”
The second tent was set up in the same way, and then all the rest of the stores were brought up from the beach. Mate Susan began to think