“Now, what if these wild dogs return some night,” said Tom to Frank, “and attack the camp.  Although no bear could squeeze in here, these half-bred wolves might, and tear us all in pieces.

“Don’t frighten a fellow, Tom,” said Frank.  “But I say, old man, we must puzzle our heads once again and make a gate.”

“Well, that’s good!” cried Tom, laughing; “why, there is only one head between the two of us, and that belongs to me, Master Frank; and don’t you forget it.”

“Well, well, you may have it, only for goodness’ sake make good use of it!”

The cup-like top of the hill in which our Crusoes were living had but one entrance, as I have before told you, and the path leading to it was very steep, and made up of large stones and lumps of lava.

“It would be a good thing,” Tom said, “to get a lot of these inside.  They would come in very handy to throw at an enemy, eh?”

“That they would,” said Frank.

Well, it took them three whole days to make and fix up a gate, which they could raise or lower before the entrance by means of ropes made out of long trailing weeds, or creepers.

Then, after they had carried about a hundred big stones inside, they began to feel happier and safer.

CHAPTER VII

One morning, a month or two after this, the Crusoes awoke to find that the sun rose that day for the last time, and, until spring should return, they would see his golden beams no more.

But there was a bright and beautiful twilight every mid-day for two weeks longer.  Then they knew that the long, dreary Arctic night had come in earnest.  For about a month the Crusoes had been eating very heartily every day and were getting quite fat.  It was the same with the animals.

Flossy had long ago lost her puppy coat, and was now a bonny whitish-yellow seal, not very large, and with a black saddle on her back.  But Flossy got drowsy too, and if the boys had not stirred her up every day, and sent her off to catch fish, I believe she would have slept nearly all the time.

Even the boys felt sleepy, though they could not tell why.  Said Tom one day to Frank as they sat playing draughts on a rough board, with nuts for men:  “Frank, old man, by this time all the bears will have gone into winter quarters.  They won’t come out much until the sun returns.”

“Fancy,” cried Aralia, clapping her hands, “Fancy all of us sleeping all night long—­three months, didn’t you say, Tom?  Wouldn’t it be nice?  And if Uncle Staysail should come in to wake us in the morning!  ‘Get up,’ he would say, ‘are you going to sleep all day?’”

They all laughed at the idea, but it was not carried out.  Besides the candles, which they only burned at supper and after, they had torches made of wood which they could burn at any time.  Moreover, there was the light of the camp fire, which they kept always burning, for they had laid in a vast store of peat and wood.