your potatoes, Brownie, while we're on the Island," said Robin. 

 After dinner and a rest the making of the "regular" hut began; the bivouac was only to be used until better accommodation was ready. A solid piece of work the making of the "Pioneer Hut"—as the boys called it—promised to be. First of all, a framework of tough ash branches, each one carefully chosen, would be needed; the ends of each must be pointed and fixed into holes in the ground, dug opposite to each other in two parallel lines, so that the whole framework, when completed, would look like a line of steady deeply-driven half-hoops of ash. A very strong branch had to be lashed to the top of the half-hoops to hold the whole together, and this must all be tested and tried before the thatching was even begun. 

 "The whole thing will take some days at least," Robin remarked to his fellow-campers as they sat round their fire. 

 "And when that's done, what'll we do next, I wonder?" remarked Peter. 

 But a great many things were going to be done that no one among the campers had any expectation of whatever! 

 CHAPTER VI 

 The hut was not finished for a week, and for seven whole days and nights there was not a drop of rain. Then, when at last the pioneer hut stood complete, taut and steady, thickly thatched and masterly in workmanship from framework to roof, the rain began. 

 Just a drop at first, but the Scouts had been expecting it; the wind had shifted, and there was likelihood of a steady downpour for some time, as their weather-eyes told them.  "It's really rather a chouse, though, just when the hut's ready, isn't it?" grumbled Peter, who hated to tear himself away from his newly completed handiwork. 

 "The weather'll test it, anyway," remarked Robin, gazing at the little erection with critical eyes.  "Now we shall know if the trench is really deep enough to carry away the water without soaking the place through, and whether that way of thatching really answers well, starting to thatch from the bottom and working up, so that the rain may drain off the side of the hut instead of drenching through." 

 "Well, that's one way of looking at it, I suppose," said Peter more resignedly. 

 "And I'll tell you what I think," said Jan, "I think it's a very good thing that the rain's begun early, if it had got to 

 Prev. P 13/29 next