"We took stock of what we had to depend on. The total assets
proved to be just three pairs of legs. A pot of coffee had been
on the fire, but that villain had kicked it over when he left.
The kettle of beans was there, but somehow we got the notion they
might have been poisoned, so we left them. I don't know now why
we were so foolish--if poison was his game, he'd have tried it
before--but at that time it seemed reasonable enough. Perhaps
the horror of the morning's work, and the sight of the
brittle-brown mountains, and the ghastly yellow glare of the sun,
and the blue waves racing by outside, and the big strong wind
that blew through us so hard that it seemed to blow empty our
souls, had turned our judgment. Anyway, we left a full meal
there in the beanpot.
So without any further delay we set off up the ridge I had
started to cross that morning. Schwartz lagged, sulky as a muley
cow, but we managed to keep him with us. At the top of the ridge
we took our bearings for the next deep bay. Already we had made
up our minds to stick to the sea-coast, both on account of the
lower country over which to travel and the off chance of falling
in with a fishing vessel. Schwartz muttered something about its
being too far even to the next bay, and wanted to sit down on a
rock.
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