62 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.

“Dat question,” he told Ralph, “am too many days off. I might
be dead “fore den, an’ de question not hab any importance. So I
won't raise de question till I get dar.”

“It’s Siah! Siah! It’s Si—ah, Rick!” shouted Ralph.

A hurried sound of feet was heard in a moment, and two men
came rushing up.

“‘ Where, where?” they asked.

“Where is what?” said Ralph.

“Fi—re? Quick!”

“ Oh it’s Si—ah, I said.”

“Nonsense! The next time you holler, take your dinner out of
your mouth,’ and the men retreated in disgust.

“Et he had some dinner in his mouth, he’d be more pleasant.
Guess he’s hungry,” said Siah.

Rick now appeared, and together he and Ralph ea over their
treasure found once more.

“Uncle Nat,” said Ralph, “Siah told me a lot about the fire-
room and the fires there, and it was real interesting.”

“Did he tell you anything so interesting as the kindling of fires
when you have nothing to light them with?”

“Nothing to light them with, Uncle!” exclaimed Rick. “That
is not very likely.”

“The savages do it though. Capt. Cook found a drilling process
common among the Australians, where they took a stick of dry,
soft wood, and setting it on another piece, twirled it between their
hands, the friction producing fire in less than two minutes. The
Sandwich Island method is the same in principle, and also that
among the Gauchos of Buenos Ayres, though the last place one
end of the rubbing-stick against the breast as a carpenter would
his bit. The Esquimaux, an old navigator said, pointed his stick