272 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



row along shore to gather coconuts and try for wild 

 pigs, which ceased to frequent Chatham Bay with 

 the coming of men. They used to row to Nuez 

 Island when the sea was calm enough, to get boob- 

 ies and their eggs, and had many desperate times in 

 the cranky craft among currents and sudden 

 squalls. The haanmer of their only gun was broken, 

 and Anderson succeeded in repairing it so that 

 sometimes after pulhng the trigger a dozen times, 

 it would go off. The difficulty was to make a pig 

 stand still during the first eleven attempts. There 

 were several flurries of excitement when they 

 thought they had located the treasure, but they did 

 less and less speculating on the subject of gold as 

 they became absorbed in the attempt to obtain food. 

 Also they were rapidly reaching the point where 

 they shirked unnecessary exertion. Sometimes, 

 tugging weakly at their roughly-fashioned oars, 

 they would be overtaken by one of those nasty 

 squalls which swoop down on Cocos, and then they 

 would labor ashore at the first possible landing- 

 place, turn the boat upside-down on two stakes, and 

 perhaps spend the night huddled beneath it, talking 

 and dozing, and smoking dried leaves in their pipes. 

 Mike was the life of the party, and Captain Gis- 

 sler still chuckles reminiscently over some of his ex- 

 ploits, particularly in the pig-killing business, when 

 he would stalk a sow in the tall grass, armed with 

 nothing but a machete, which he would throw at the 

 pig to trip it, and then, if that manoeuvre succeeded, 

 grappling with the kicking creature in Homeric 

 combat. 



