The next morning (late afternoon, really – no one had gone to bed until well after first light) Gilligan found the Professor in the jungle loading his arms from a towering pile of red-gold split logs. "Wow – I've heard of saving for a rainy day, but this is ridiculous!"

The Professor very nearly dropped his load. "Gilligan! Good heavens! How do you feel?"

And before Gilligan knew what was happening, the scientist tossed the wood down and enveloped him in a hug. Gilligan smiled; if they gave out college degrees for being an old softie, the Professor would have graduated top of his class. "Swell, Professor. What you guys did for me last night worked like a charm. I had the first good sleep I've had for ages."

The Professor pulled back and looked him up and down approvingly. "Shakespeare called sleep the balm of hurt minds. He was right...rest is the best medicine."

Gilligan shrugged and smiled again. "I don't know why he called it a bomb, Professor, but I'm with you on the medicine part. I don't know how I'm ever gonna thank you. All of you."

"We were glad to do it." The Professor straightened up, hands on hips. "So...have you had any breakfast? Or lunch, shall we say, since it's long past noon?"

"And how! The women cornered me back at camp and wouldn't let me move until I'd finished two plates full. I thought Mrs. Howell was going to put a bib on me and hold the spoon! Mr. Howell even made me one of his specialty omelettes. Funny..." Gilligan frowned slightly. "He wasn't wearing a hat this morning. I haven't seen Mr. Howell wear a hat in a while, come to think of it."

"Perhaps it's a new fad back home," said the Professor cryptically. "In any case, it's wonderful to see you looking so well."

Thanks, Professor." Gilligan looked about. "Say, have you seen my big buddy around? I wanted to thank him too for last night, but when I woke up he'd already gone. The others said they didn't know when he'd get back."

The Professor glanced back at the woodpile. "I'm not sure when he'll return either. But before he left he did tell us you were sleeping peacefully, and urged us all not to disturb you."

Gilligan saw where the Professor was looking, and his own eyes narrowed. "What's going on with him, Professor?"

"What do you mean?"

"The Skipper's been acting real funny lately: and not funny 'funny,' funny 'strange'."

"Well..." The Professor hedged a little. "He has been unusually protective of you, but surely that's understandable."

"Yeah, I know." Gilligan smiled gentlly. "He's been sticking to me like gum to the bottom of a chair for days, and you know what, Professor? I think I would have gone crazy if he hadn't. But the funny thing is, every so often he leaves me with you guys for a couple of hours and says he's got 'something he's just gotta do -' only he won't tell me what it is. Come on, Professor. Level with me." He looked the Professor in the eyes. "Is the Skipper okay?"

"You always did know him better than any of us," said the Professor quietly. "No. I don't believe he is."

"Then what's wrong with him? Let me in on it, Professor! I want to help!"

"I hope you can; I'm certainly not having any success. As for the Skipper's secret sojourns--" The Professor jerked his head towards the woodpile. "He's been collecting firewood."

"What? That's the big secret? Why doesn't he just say so?" Gilligan goggled at the stockpile. "And look at all this, for Pete's sake! What do we need all this wood for? If this keeps up, the island'll be one big field!"

"He certainly is determined." The Professor looked at the pile and sighed. "Or obsessed."

"Obsessed?"

The Professor nodded. "I'm afraid this is obsessive-compulsive behaviour, Gilligan. It's as though the Skipper's driven to keep chopping wood. I suppose it's his way of dealing with...with everything that happened."

"It's okay to say it, Professor."

The scientist hesitated, giving Gilligan a searching look. "Are you sure?"

"Uh huh. Don't worry; I won't run away. You mean that Kinkaid hunted me and I nearly died."

"Well...well, yes."

"And then I got so jumpy afterwards that everybody was afraid of what I might do next."

"Well, yes. Exactly."

Gilligan took a deep breath. "I'll be honest with you, Professor. I'm not out of the woods yet, and I'm not really sure how long it's gonna take me. But at least it's not so dark in there anymore. And it's all 'cause of you guys: you'll never know how much you helped me, especially last night. I can see things so much better now. Do you know what I mean?"

"I think so." The Professor folded his arms, smiling. "You really are quite a remarkable young man, Gilligan."

"Oh, I don't know. But what about the Skipper? Why's he chopping all this wood?" Gilligan squatted by the base of the pile and picked up a log from the end. "And why just this kind of wood? It's all koa, isn't it?"

The Professor raised an eyebrow in surprise. "That's right, Gilligan. Acacia Koa, endemic to the Hawaiian Islands."

"Endemic?"

"It means it's found nowhere else," the Professor explained. "But if, as I suspect, Hawaiian natives reached this island hundreds of years ago, they would have brought seedlings with them. You see, the ancient Hawaiians prized this wood for its strength and beauty, and used it to build their great war canoes."

"I believe it. The Skipper and I used to see this stuff in Hawaii all the time. People make furniture and picture frames and surf-boards and ukuleles out if it..." He sighed, fingering the the grain. "Gee, Professor, it's just too nice to burn."

The Professor sighed too. "That's what I told the Skipper. But he insists the trees are an eyesore, and he's going to get rid of them."

"Like the bamboo water trough." Gilligan looked up. "Professor, why did he chop that thing to pieces? It's almost like he had it in for it or something."

"I think I know the answer, Gilligan. I was there."

"There when? When he took the axe to it?"

"No." The Professor's eyes darkened at the dreadful memory. "When you fell into that trough after Kinkaid shot at you, and the Skipper and I thought you'd been hit."

"You thought I'd been...oh my gosh..." said Gilligan softly, his eyes slowly widening.

"You fell in, but you didn't get up," the Professor continued, his voice catching slightly. "The water was murky, and we kept expecting to see it clouding with blood. And Kinkaid was laughing, gloating over how he was going to claim his trophy."

"He said that? I couldn't hear him underwater," Gilligan whispered. "And I didn't know you were there. Oh, Professor. Oh, Skipper."

"Then you pulled Kinkaid's arm and burst out of the water...and we were cheering. But I'll be honest with you, Gilligan: after what we first saw, I never wanted to see that trough again either."

"Yeah...I guess not. Oh, my gosh. You poor guys. No wonder the Skipper got rid of it." Gilligan looked at the wood pile again and frowned. "But why hate the trees? I hid in the trees. They helped me. What do the trees have to do with Kinkaid and me?"

The Professor shrugged helplessly. "I don't know, Gilligan. I would have said the Skipper was simply striking out in anger with his axe, but I don't understand why it's just the koa."

"Yeah..." Gilligan suddenly noticed a pile of smaller chunks and splinters near the main stack. "Professor, what's all this stuff?"

"Oh...just kindling, I suppose. Koa has an unfortunate tendency to tear when it's cut. I expect those pieces just fell off when the Skipper was chopping."

"Mmmm." Gilligan picked idly through the pile, then suddenly paused. He plucked out a flat, slightly concave piece that had obviously been part of a hollow trunk. A crude rectangular hole was bored in the middle: a hole no animal had made. Gilligan gasped.

The Professor looked down. "Gilligan? What have you found?"

"I think I know the answer, Professor! Or at least a part of it." He sprang to his feet. "Listen, do you know where the Skipper went?"

"I think he went up to the north shore, by the mountains. There's a whole grove of koa there." He tried to see what Gilligan was holding. "But what do you mean, you think you know the answer? What is that thing?"

"I'll tell you later, Professor. I've got to talk to the Skipper. If I'm not back in time for supper, don't worry about me, okay?" And before the Professor could reply, Gilligan sprinted off into the jungle.