"Onions!" exclaimed Jesse; and "Onions!" repeated John after him. "Nothing would be better, but we haven't got any."
Rob produced from behind his back a small sack which they found contained a few of these precious bulbs, most valued of almost any vegetable in the far north.
"Where did you get those?" asked John. "They certainly didn't grow here."
"No," said Rob; "I found this little sack hidden back under the _klipsies_ in the far end of the old barabbara up there. I suppose some native hid it there when they came down in the bay after their whale. Anyhow, we have been on meat diet so long that I will take the liberty of using these, no matter whom they belong to. Of course we're not living much on salt meat, but even if we don't get scurvy we ought to have all the vegetables and green things we can get hold of. Now, onions mayn't smell as nice as some things, but there's no better medicine in this sort of life."
"Leave them to me," said John, who had grown to be quite a good cook, perhaps by reason of his natural inclination for good things to eat. "I'll make a stew of them with some of that bear meat and some of Skookie's bulbs here. I'll bet we'll have the finest meal to-night we have ever had on the island." And so they all agreed. Late that night they rolled up in their bedding on the grass beds of their new house, and soon slept soundly within close reach of the waves of the sea, whose steady sound along the beach came to them far more plainly here than had been the case at the older barabbara.
After this the boys used this new house more than the older house, and little by little moved most of their belongings down there, although they still kept their flag-staff up on the upper beach in the hope that some passing vessel might come into their bay and see their signal.
"Now I've got a notion," said Rob, one morning not long after they had finished their new barabbara, "that if we were asked about this big island where we are living we couldn't tell very much regarding it. We've only been over a little strip of country around here. I don't suppose we've ever been more than five or six miles from camp yet, even when we climbed highest in the mountains beyond the creek. Yet we can see over thirty miles of country from here. I'd sort of like to have a trip up one of those other valleys." He pointed a hand to the farther shore of the bay which lay before their gaze, level and calm as a mirror.