Keekie Joe had intended to make sure that there was nothing to eat in the shanty before casting his line in the neighboring water.

For there was the barest chance that a petrified crust of bread, ancient remnant of some fisherman's lunch, might be in the place.
Once Keekie Joe had found such a crust there.

But the place was bare now of everything except deserted spider-webs, black and heavy with dust.

These and the mass of net upon the ground were all that Keekie Joe could see in the light of the genial moonbeams which shone through the open doorway and wriggled in through the cracks in the weather-beaten boards.
And now again Keekie Joe had to make a choice.

He was hungry, oh, so hungry.