Danny Dunn on a Desert Island Page 6

The Professor calmly finished the mouthful he was eating. Then he said, “My boy, you constantly surprise me. I suppose it’s only natural. I sometimes forget how full of ideas I was at your age. I guess it’s possible, but it would be difficult.”

  “But then we could keep the transmitter going all day long, and still be free to work,” Danny said, persuasively. “I’ve been thinking about it. We’d need a water wheel.”

  “Yes.”

  “We could move the transmitter over to the other side of the rocks. The stream falls about twenty feet over the cliffs, there, to a shelf above the sea. There’s just room to set up a water wheel and get the full force of the fall.”

  “What would you make paddles out of?” asked Dr. Grimes. “Tree trunks?”

  “No. The emergency chest. It’s plywood. We might be able to split it up with the stone ax and the raft knife.”

  “Hmm. And I suppose we could make the axle out of a good, straight pole. We’d have to drill holes, though,” said the Professor.

  “Maybe I can help with that,” Dr. Grimes said, beginning to be interested. “I used to know how to make a bow-drill with a couple of sticks, a nail, and some string. Among all the junk in your pockets, Danny, do you have a nail?”

  “Sure. I always carry a couple.”

  Danny took out a pencil and a scrap of paper.

  “Look, here’s how we could make the wheel. The water turns the paddles, which are fastened to an axle. The axle turns a round disk, and the crank handle is fastened to the outer edge of the disk so that as the wheel goes round it turns the crank.”

  “What could we use for the disk?” asked the Professor. “That would be the most difficult, because it would have to be an exact circle.”

  “I’ve thought of that, too. The round door on the front of the radio, the one that holds the antenna reel, is just the right size. There’s only a cotter pin holding it in place, and when we take the antenna reel off there’ll be a hole in the center just right for the shaft to go through.”

  “Excellent!” said Professor Bullfinch. “What do you say, Grimes?”

  Dr. Grimes stroked his chin. “It helps make up for their foolish prank,” he admitted.

  The Professor raised a canteen. “To the success of the water wheel,” he said. “And it’s only right that we should drink the toast in water!”

  The very next morning, after breakfast, they began work on it. It proved more difficult than they had expected, but they were all excited by the idea and worked hard.

  To begin with, it took over an hour to split part of the plywood box into six pieces, about five inches wide and eighteen inches long. They drilled holes in the ends of these pieces, and in the ends of pairs of thin poles. Then they whittled wooden pegs, and hammered them into the holes, to make six sets of paddles.

  These paddles were then fixed into holes in a perfectly straight, tough wooden shaft, which in turn was connected to the circular door from the front of the transmitter. Lastly, the crank handle was fastened firmly to the outside edge of this disk, using parts from the antenna reel to hold it. The radio was strapped between two upright posts driven deep into the ground.

  The wooden shaft rested on two forked sticks, one on each side of the falling water. The Professor brought some iguana fat and greased these forks and the axle also. Then the wheel was set in place and the axle connected to the crank handle.

  Slowly, the wheel began to turn, creaking a little. Instead of lashings, they had drilled holes and pounded in wooden pegs to hold the parts together, and they watched anxiously, hoping the machine wouldn’t fall apart. Danny helped it along by turning it once or twice.

  Water splashed from the edges of the paddles. More and more swiftly the wheel turned. They all fidgeted, biting their fingernails or holding their breaths with impatience.

  Suddenly the light on the radio flickered, weakly at first, then more brightly. It began blinking, three longs, three shorts, three longs.

  “We’re transmitting,” the Professor said, drawing a relieved breath.

  He took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes.

  “Water power,” he mused. “We have come slowly up the scale of man’s achievements, from the stone ax to the bathtub, and now—the water wheel. And all in a little more than a week.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I Shot an Arrow…”

  Their ninth day on the island was a day to be remembered. To begin with, there was the finding of the turtle.

  The boys ran down, as usual, to have their swim in the morning. They had all been so tired the night before, after the building of the water mill, that they had once again put off the job of heating water. Their hard work had made them grimy, and they plunged into the sea with delight. Danny scrubbed himself with handfuls of sand. Joe, however, complained that he was too ticklish for such treatment, and since he was dirtier than Danny he’d have to scrub harder. He contented himself with just swimming.

  When they had dried themselves in the sun, they started off for one of the rocky arms that guarded their beach, to hunt for birds’ eggs. At the end of the beach they both stopped short. An enormous sea turtle was lying among the rocks.

  It was a great, green beast, a full three feet long and much too heavy for the boys to move out of the rocks. Something had attacked it and wounded it. It must have reached the shallows where its enemy could not follow. There it had died and had been washed up on the shore.

  The boys ran to fetch Professor Bullfinch and Dr. Grimes. When the two men had come to the beach, they were able to drag the turtle down to the sand.

  “This is a stroke of luck,” said the Professor. His eyes grew dreamy. “Turtle soup, turtle steaks…”

  “But is it all right to eat it?” Danny asked. “After all, it died of a wound.”

  Professor Bullfinch smiled. “Most of the meat we normally eat dies of a wound,” he replied. “As long as it is fresh and clean, as this is from the sea, there’s nothing wrong with eating it.”

  “It’ll be quite a job cutting it up and cleaning it,” Dr. Grimes said. “However, it should be worth it.”

  With their knives and stone axes they went to work on the creature. After several hours they succeeded in getting most of the meat and almost a hundred round, tough-skinned eggs that looked like golf balls, and could be bounced without breaking. They emptied out the shell, which was smooth and leathery, and brought it up to their camp to dry. Then they feasted on the rich steaks which, when broiled, were delicious. They ate some of the eggs, too, and found them not much tastier than real golf balls might have been.

  After they had dined, the men lay down for a nap and the boys, taking some turtle fat with them, went to check on the water wheel. They had found that they could not allow the wheel to run steadily, as the friction of the wooden axle against its forked supports would have been too great no matter how much they greased it. They therefore let it run for half-hour periods with long rests in between, during which they cranked the transmitter by hand. The boys had taken on the duty of keeping the mill greased and moving it in and out of the waterfall.

  They got it started, made sure it was sending out its signal, and then clambered up the rocks and sat down in the sun. From their perch, they could look along the coast. Black cliffs fell away into the sea; they were not high but very steep, and above them the ground sloped more gradually upward to the peak of the extinct volcano near the center of the island.

  The boys were almost drowsing. Suddenly, Danny sat up straight. “What’s that?” he exclaimed, pointing.

  Joe opened his eyes. “Where?”

  Danny stood up, squinting against the glare of the sun on the sea. He pointed at the spot where the coast bent away out of sight. A large dark rock jutted into the water, and at the top of it, growing in no more than a handful of soil, stood a single bent, gnarled tree.

  “I thought I saw some
thing move there. It looked like—like a man.”

  “Probably some animal,” said Joe, lazily.

  “No, I’m sure it was a man. It was doing something at that tree, and then it ran off.”

  “A monkey.”

  “Professor Bullfinch said there aren’t any monkeys in this region.”

  “Well, Dr. Grimes said there aren’t any men in this region, so we’re even.”

  Danny grabbed his friend’s arm. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s investigate.”

  Joe groaned. “Why? If there are any natives on this island, they’re probably cannibals. And I don’t feel up to being anybody’s dinner.”

  Danny started off. “Okay,” he called, “you stay here. I’m going.”

  “Oh, shucks! Wait a minute. I may as well go along to keep you out of trouble. Not that it’ll do any good…”

  They crossed the stream higher up, and then returned to the edge of the cliffs where the ground was more open. They plodded along for ten or fifteen minutes, stumbling over broken lava, and now and then making a detour to avoid a particularly thick clump of cactus. At last they came to the summit of the large rock and stood beneath the twisted tree.

  Joe said, “How could we tell if anybody’s been here? This rock doesn’t hold any footprints.”

  “Don’t look down,” said Danny. “Look up.”

  “Up? Do you expect them to leave footprints in the air?”

  “Don’t be silly! I mean that.”

  Joe followed Danny’s pointing finger. Then he gulped. High above their heads, stuck fast in the wood, was a long arrow.

  “Holy smoke!” said Joe. “Indians!”

  Danny stared eagerly at the arrow. “Looks like he shot his arrow and it went too high. He couldn’t reach it, and he couldn’t climb the tree because of those.”

  “Those” were thorns, almost three inches long, that protruded from the tree trunk at intervals.

  “You mean he went to get help?” said Joe. “And that means he’ll be coming back soon. With more arrows… Good-bye!”

  “Wait a sec. You know how the Professor is always talking about getting facts. If we go back without any proof they won’t believe us. Let’s get that arrow.”

  “But Dan, I don’t like thorns either,” Joe cried. He kept looking about him as if that unknown archer might suddenly appear from behind a cactus plant.

  “We don’t have to climb. You weigh less than I do. Get up on my shoulders.”

  “But—but—but—oh, okay.”

  Danny bent over next to the tree. Joe knelt on his back, then slowly stood up, wobbling a bit. Danny straightened. Both boys braced themselves with their hands against the tree trunk, being careful to avoid the thorns.

  Joe took hold of the arrow and pulled. It had a head made of bone, and it was so firmly embedded in the wood that he had to cut around it with his pocketknife to get it free. Then, cautiously, he got down.

  “All right,” he said. “Now you’ve got it, let’s go.”

  They started out walking, but before long they were trotting and then running, their thoughts on the unknown men somewhere behind them. They took a short cut higher up the slope to avoid the cactus, and splashed through the stream at a shallow place. They rushed down to the camp and then took the trail to the beach.

  The two men were standing around something that simmered and bubbled over a fire, and gave off a dreadful smell. They looked up as the boys came panting into view, and the Professor said with a broad smile, “I have a surprise for you. Grimes and I have been making soap. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “We’ve got a surprise for you,” Danny gasped. “Look at this.”

  “Oh, you made an arrow? How clever. But our soap—”

  “We didn’t make it, Professor. We found it in a tree.”

  “Growing there?” said the Professor, with a puzzled look. Then his expression changed. “You mean there are natives on this island?”

  “Impossible! Let me see that,” Dr. Grimes snapped, taking the arrow.

  Both men bent over it. “There’s no question of it,” Professor Bullfinch said. “It is newly made. Look at the feathers, and the sinew that holds the head to the shaft.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” said Dr. Grimes. “This may mean trouble.”

  “Oh, not necessarily,” the Professor was beginning, when Danny suddenly said, “Trouble? Oh, gosh! I just remembered something!”

  “Oh, yes, our soap,” said the Professor mildly. “Yes, we took wood ashes and turtle fat and cooked them in the turtle shell. I think it was rather brilliant of us. Grimes and I should both get credit for it. It was his idea to smear the shell with clay, to keep it from—”

  “I don’t mean your soap,” said Danny impatiently. “I mean the water wheel. We forgot all about it.”

  Without another word, he darted back up the trail. The others followed, still not quite sure what he meant. They climbed over the hump of the rocks, but even before they descended to the shore the reason for Danny’s haste became evident. A thread of gray smoke was rising from the base of the cliff. They scrambled down the tumbled lava blocks to the shore. Here, at the foot of the high waterfall, they had put their paddle wheel.

  It was clear at a glance what had happened.

  The wooden shaft, turning on its wooden supports, had grown hotter and hotter from friction in the long interval while the boys had been away. At last it had burst into flame.

  The wheel still turned, for the water had kept it from burning. But at the other end, the shaft had burned right into the radio. The metal case was smudged with black, although it did not appear to be harmed. But when they had loosened the screws and removed the face plate, they saw that the heat had cracked tubes and fused connections. The radio would never send another call for help.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Dr. Grimes Springs His Trap

  “We can’t honestly blame you boys,” Professor Bullfinch said, as they surveyed the ruin. “After all, it was immensely important to learn that we are not alone on this island.”

  “They should have reported to us before rushing off like that,” Dr. Grimes said sternly. “Danny’s always doing thoughtless, headstrong things.”

  “Come now, Grimes,” the Professor said soothingly. “I’m sure when you were younger you weren’t much different. In any case, there’s nothing we can do about the radio except hope that someone has picked up our signal. But there is something we can do about our neighbors.”

  “You’re right about that,” said Grimes. “We can prepare to defend ourselves.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean that. I meant that we could visit them.”

  At this, Dr. Grimes turned perfectly purple. “You dreamer! You visionary!” he exclaimed. “Visit them? We’ll undoubtedly have them visit us before long—with their butcher knives ready. Why don’t you just sprinkle yourself with parsley and lie down on a plate?”

  “Well, chiefly because we haven’t any parsley,” said the Professor gently. “Come, now, Grimes. We have no proof that these people are unfriendly. And we certainly have no proof that they’re cannibals.”

  “Proof?” Dr. Grimes controlled himself with an effort. “Bullfinch, I have no intention of waiting to be put into a pot for proof. They may be friendly. But why should we take chances? When that man returns and finds his arrow gone, he’ll know we’re here—if they don’t already know it, and haven’t just been biding their time. We must make weapons. And we must surround the camp with traps so they can’t come on us at night, without warning.”

  Professor Bullfinch tapped the stem of his pipe against his teeth. “Well,” he said at last, “I suppose there’s some sense in that. What do you boys think?”

  “What’s the difference what they think?” Dr. Grimes snapped.

  “We’re all in this together, Grimes,” the Professor
replied. “If they’re to be eaten with us, they should vote with us. Well, boys?”

  “I vote to be prepared,” said Danny.

  “So do I—and I don’t mean as a dish,” said Joe.

  They began by making two more spears, like those the boys already had. Then they cut some shorter sticks and fastened chunks of stone into clefts at one end of them to make a kind of rude war club. They boys cut quantities of thorny branches, and piled them along the ridge of rock, leaving a narrow entranceway so that they could go for water.

  Dr. Grimes had been drawing diagrams on a bit of paper. “I have developed a man trap,” he said, “which we can set at night. Come with me. I’ll demonstrate it.”

  He found a tall, springy sapling growing beside their trail to the banana grove. Using some of the nylon rope, he made a large noose and fastened it to the top of the young tree. Then he bent the tree down and pegged the lower part of the noose to the ground with two wooden hooks.

  “Anyone running along this trail,” he explained, “will hit the lower edge of the noose. The pegs will jerk out, and the noose will close on him and hoist him up.”

  “Isn’t that rather drastic?” the Professor remarked. “It might kill a native, and we’re really not at war with them.”

  “Not at all. It can’t really hurt anyone,” Dr. Grimes returned. “As you can see, it is tripped in such a way that it closes around the body and holds a man helpless.”

  “Very ingenious,” said the Professor. “How did you ever happen to think of such a thing?”

  “Why, I—er—” Dr. Grimes reddened. Then he said, “To tell the truth, I read about it in a book called Simba, the Jungle Lad, when I was eleven years old.”

  Joe scratched his head. “I don’t know whether we ought to give Dr. Grimes a notch, or give it to Simba instead,” he grinned.

  “Oh, let’s not be fussy,” said the Professor. “Give it to your pal, Dr. Grimes.”

  They made two more of these traps on the hill slope. Then Joe cut an elaborate notch in the doctor’s tally stick.