Little Folk

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 89, 14 April 1923, Page 16

Little Folk

(All Eights Reserved.)

No. 39.

SILVER ISLANQ

(Written for "The Post" by Edith Howes.)

CHAPTER IV.

It 1 was on.the third day that the young Lesters really began to enjoy their island. Hitherto camp-making had taken every waking moment, but now their house wai in order, and they could take life more easily. They fished, they bathed, they rowed, and bathed again; they made a little Maori oven in a hole ne»r their fireplace, and left their fish to cook in its hot stones and steaming, leaves^ while they wont inland to explore the island, They were quite well fed. for they had found a multitude of fat little oysters on the rooks about the coast, and Enids morning damper had been successful, and wild fuchsia berries hung ripe about the edge of the bush. "Now to look for silver!" Enid cried; aud off they went. Jim took his tomahawk, "Whiffles took the sheath knife, and Enid produced a Btranga little sharp-nosed hammer. - "Wherever did you get that?" both boys askad at once. "In Uncle's shed," she replied. "I sawit just as we were coming away. He never seems to use it, and I though^ it would be just the think for breaking off bits of rook to see if there was silver inside." It was indeed just the thing; the. boys could see that at once. "But where have you been keepinz it all the time?" asked Jim. "I haven t seen it before." "And I haven't seen it before," echoed Wuffles. _ ■ Enid smiled a superior smile. "Little boys mustn't be allowed to see everything," she..said in her best p;rowh-up manner. In reality she had hidden the hammer most carefully in her overcoat and then under her bed of fern for fear that either of the boys would appropriate it on sight. They both made a dash at her now, but she slipped into the thick Bcrub and was lost to sight. "Come on!" she called from halfway down the bank. I can see somethinfr shining in the water; I believe it is silver." They all sorambled down to the creek. It was wida and shallow here, spreading out ovor a, little shingle flat before enterins; the sea. Among its stones tiny grains sparkled her and there where the sun shone on them through the overarohing trees. Thy miprht be silver, but they were ao small that it was impossible to pick them vjj; impossible to tell what they were. "We'll follow up the creek," said, Jim. Tho banks were thickly bushed and difficult, but the children were barefooted, so they waded upstream. Enid tucked in her short serge skirt and that was all tho preparation neoessary, for the. water was nowhere deep enough, to come above their, knees. Here and there they were able to jump from, boulder to boulder, or to stand on a big moss-oovered rook while the current eddied and swirled around them, or to seize some low-hung branoh and swing with it yards up tho stream, dropping with a splash and a ahout oP< delight into the 000 l water again; but for the most part their going was an easy up-RTade wading. Bush trees met overhead, rat* and rimu and fuchsia; thousands of shrubs, some brightly berried, filled the space below; tree-ferns reared their stately crowns abore trailing herbs and beds of soft green moss; brambles and lianes clambered everywhere, sometimes hanginß in long intertwisted ropes from forty feet above. Brown _'kaka« flew overhead, screaming their wild parrot scream, and displaying the bright crimson of their underwings • green-baoked bell-birds peeped at the ohildren through leafy soreens; fantails flitted beside them along the banks; and a great native pigeon, brilliant in his many-oloured plumage and sno*i; breast, watohed .them from a low bough till they were_ almost upon him, when he flaw heavily and slowly away. Everywhere was beauty, and throughout tho bush was nothing tlv would hurt them, nothing more_ h&rnunl than a sandfly or a very occasional mosquito; no snakes, no ferocious ants, no wild beasts such as there are m lees favoured countries. Whenever a likely-looking rook was notioed, Enid chipped at 'it with her little hammer, or the boys dropped boulders on it. Sometimes they managed to break pieces off, but not once were they rewarded ,by the shining of silver on the broken face. Yet they went on and on, hopeful still. Presently they came to great heaps of rocks, piled on either side of the narrow waterway. Here was tho meeting place of th© three tiny; streams that fed the creek and gave it its name, Threefold. They came Bulging. down, one from each peak, their beds much steeper and rougher than the one the children had been following, and blooked here and there, by a terrace of stone over which tho water poured in a little foaming cascade. "Three creeks, and three of us!" said Jim. "Let's divide. I'll go to the right." "I'll go up the middle," said Wuffles. Enid looked doubtful. "I don't like Wuffle* going off by himself," she objected. "He. might get lost or something." ||Me get^ost!" scoffed Wuffies. "He can't get lost if he doesn't leave the creek," said Jim. "He has only to keep to that, both going and coming down, and hp can't go wrong. We'll each explore to the head of our creek and thon come back. We'll meet here, and nobody is to go home without the others." "Oh, very well," said Enid. "That seems all right." They set off, oalltng to each other at first, but were soon out of eight aud hearing. Enid and Jim had almost the same experiences, the one going- to the loft and the other to the right. . They found the. way much more difficult than before, and had often to leave the creek bed and clamber round rocks or push their way through thick bush. Each found the spring at the source of the little stream, but found no silver; and each returned to the meeting place hot and tired, arriving there within a few minutes of one another. They sat, on the rooks and talked for a long time, telling what they had seen, but no Wuffles appeared. "Bother that kid. Why doesn't he come?" exolaimed Jim. "I'm hungry. I want to go home." The camp was "home" already. , "I felt sure something would go wrong if we l&t Wuffles go off my himself," eaid Enid uneasily. "He's such a one for getting into scrapes, you know." "Oh, he's all right. Just dawdling about somewhere. He'll be here directly. Myword, the silver! Look, Enid!" _ Jim had been for some time impatiently tapping on a small pioce of rook with the back of his tomahawk; now it had suddenly split open, showing itself spangled with silvery glittering grains embedded in the stone. "Jim, it is! It is! I'm sure it is!" Enid jumped on a. big rock aud danced. "These rocks might be all full of it. Oh, isn't it splendid! Let me have another look." Jim handed her a. piece of the rock. "It doesn't seem so bright as it was," she said in a disappointed tone. ; "Because it's getting dark," said Jim. "Where can that young Wuffles be?" He shouted again and again, but thero was no reply. "He's left the creek and got lost, or else he's hurt himself," said Enid despondently. "Come on, we must go and look for him." ' (To be continued.)