"Well, then, here is just what has happened. A huge, great tidal wave has been raised during the hurricane, and has rushed in up here into a kind of dry dock. It has gone now, and such another wave may not come again for a hundred years."
"You are much wiser than I thought, Adolph."
"No doubt, Kep; but no ordinary tide can touch us or poop us here, so we are not so badly off. We have provisions enough to last us for a year and more."
"But we are a kind of Crusoes, aren't we, comrade?"
"And there will be a bit of fun in being Crusoes, won't there?"
"And mayn't there be some savages on this island, if it be an island? Mayn't there?"
"And that would mean some danger, wouldn't it, Adolph?"
"Yes--yes--yes. But really, from the way you talk, Kep, one would think you really wanted savages and danger too."
"Oh, if we are to be Crusoes, I should like everything ship-shape, and even the mark of the naked foot in the sand."
"I suppose, Kep, you could manage to get up the cliffs?"
"Dear me, yes, Adolphus," answered Kep somewhat proudly; "my sister Madge and I were awfully good cragsmen. Oh, shouldn't I like if Madge and Bounder were here."
"Well, Madge isn't here, and you can't write home if you wished to. So content you."
"But goodness knows, Adolph, there are scores and scores of empty bottles on board. Suppose we write scores and scores of letters and send them adrift in the scores and scores of bottles?"
"Oh, some would be picked up, and then a ship would be sent to take us off."
"Off? Do you know where we are, latitude and longitude and all that? If not, how could you tell them where to come to?"
Kep scratched his wise head. "I daresay that is the drawback," he said.
"We'll just have to wait till the ship comes, Kep, as patiently as a penguin on a rock."
"But the ship is sure to come, ain't it?"
"And we'll take turns at lighting fires on the rocks, and make a broom and hoist it. I think, Adolph, we can look forward to some real good fun."
"I wouldn't be too sure. But, I say, let us go below now, and I'll cook a nice comfortable bit of breakfast, and then we'll go on shore and spy out the land."
"That's it--spy out the land. We'll take our guns and creep from bush to bush like real wild Cuscorora Indians, and if we meet a savage we will say, 'O golly, foh true!' and he'll say 'Ugh!'"