"Well, hold on to what you've got left. They may come in for fish-hooks. Let's see your shoes."
Miss Leslie slowly thrust a slender little foot just beyond the hem of her draggled white skirt.
"Good Lord!" groaned Blake, "slippers, and high heels at that! How do you expect to walk in those things?"
"I can at least try," replied the girl, with spirit.
"Hobble! Pass 'em over here, Winnie, my boy."
The slippers were handed over. Blake took one after the other, and wrenched off the heel close to its base.
"Now you've at least got a pair of slippers," he said, tossing them back to their owner. "Tie them on tight with a couple of your ribbons, if you don't want to lose them in the mud. Now, Winthrope, what you got beside the knife?"
Winthrope held out a bunch of long flat keys and his cigarette case. He opened the latter, and was about to throw away the two remaining cigarettes when Blake grasped his wrist.
"Hold on! even they may come in for something. We'll at least keep them until we need the case."
"I've heard of savages making fire by rubbing wood."
"Yes; and we're a long way from being savages,--at present. All the show we have is to find some kind of quartz or flint, and the sooner we start to look the better. Got your slippers tied, Miss Jenny?"
"Think! It's knowing's the thing. Here, let me look."
The girl shrank back; but Blake stooped and examined first one slipper and then the other. The ribbons about both were tied in dainty bows. Blake jerked them loose and twisted them firmly over and under the slippers and about the girl's slender ankles before knotting the ends.
"There; that's more like. You're not going to a dance," he growled.
He thrust the empty whiskey flask into his hip pocket, and went back to pass a sling of reeds through the gills of the coryphene.
"All ready now," he called. "Let's get a move on. Keep my coat closer about your shoulders, Miss Jenny, and keep your shade up, if you don't want a sunstroke."
"Thank you, Blake, I'll see to that," said Winthrope. "I'm going to help Miss Leslie along. I've fastened our two shades together, so that they will answer for both of us."
"How about yourself, Mr. Blake?" inquired the girl. "Do you not find the sun fearfully hot?"