my heart, sir!" said the rough commander. "I have boys of my
own back in New England. We'll comb this island rock by rock, and if we
suspect foul play we'll blow every native village off the face of it!"

The hoarse roar of the _Bennington's_ deep-throated signal-whistles
echoed along the rock-bound shore. Within an hour her boats were all
stowed, and with each man at his quarters the trim cutter passed slowly
down the west coast of the island.

"I'm not supposed to be a relief expedition," muttered Captain Stephens,
"and I s'pose we'll all lose our jobs with Uncle Sam; but until we do, I
figure that Uncle Sam can better afford to lose three months' time of
this ship's crew than it can three bright boys who may grow up to be
good sailors sometime.

"We'll skirt the island in the opposite direction from that in which the
youngsters probably went," said he, turning to Mr. Hazlett. "We'll have
to stop at every cannery and settlement, and the boat crews will need to
search every little bay and coast."

"You talk as though you hoped to find them," said Mr. Hazlett, catching
a gleam of courage from the other's resolute speech.

"Find 'em?" said Captain Stephens. "Of course we'll find 'em; we've
_got_ to find 'em!"

XXXI

THE SEARCH-PARTY

It should be remembered that the coast of the great Kadiak Island is
here and there indented with deep bays, which at one point nearly cut it
in two. Had the boys known it, they were, in their camp near the head of
Kaludiak Bay, not more than thirty miles distant across the mountain
passes to the head of Uyak Bay, which makes in on the west side of the
island, and which was the first great inlet to be searched by the boat
crews of the _Bennington_. The total coast-line of so large a bay is
hundreds of miles in extent, and broken with many little coves, each of
which must be visited and inspected, for any projecting rock point might
hide a boat or camp from view.

On this great bay there were two or three salmon-fisheries in operation,
and as these always employ numbers of natives who come from all parts of
the island, Captain Stephens had close inquiries made at each; but more
than two weeks passed and no word could be gained of any white persons
at any other portion of the island.

"Naturally we won't hear anything on this side," said Captain Stephens
to Mr. Hazlett. "Not many natives from the east coast come over here to
work, and from what I know of the prevailing tide