As the short commons grew shorter and shorter, both meat and drink, at
Camp Famine, and the campers found it was useless to attempt thieving
from the Altrurians, they had tried begging from the owners in their
large tent, but they were told that the provisions were giving out there,
too, and there was nothing for them. When they insisted the servants of
the owners had threatened them with revolvers, and the sailors, who had
nothing but their knives, preferred to attempt living on the country.
Within a week the whole crew had been put to work in the woods and fields
and quarries, or wherever they could make themselves useful. They were,
on the whole, so well fed and sheltered that they were perfectly
satisfied, and went down with the Altrurians on the beach during the
Voluntaries and helped secure the yacht's boats and pieces of wreckage
that came ashore. Until they became accustomed or resigned to the
Altrurian diet, they were allowed to catch shell-fish and the crabs that
swarmed along the sand and cook them, but on condition that they built
their fires on the beach, and cooked only during an offshore wind, so
that the fumes of the roasting should not offend the villagers.
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