of my neighbor Wilcox at Valdez!"
he exclaimed. "Tell me where you got it, and how!"

As may be supposed, it was the Aleut chief whom he addressed, and the
latter now engaged in a very anxious attempt at explanation. He declared
at first that the boys had given him this rifle as a present; then he
admitted that he had promised to take a message up to Kadiak, going on
to say that he had intended to do this, but that his wife had been sick,
that he had been kept at the village by many things, etc.

"He's an old liar, without doubt," said Captain Stephens. "Half of this
band of natives down here are afraid to come to Kadiak because of the
debts they owe the company store. They are wreckers, renegades, and
thieves down here, and you can't believe a word of them. I've half a
mind to hang the lot of them at the yard-arm, and good riddance of them
at that!"

The old chief understood something of what was going on, and now began
to beg and blubber.

"Me good mans!" he repeated, beating on his chest.

"He says that he's got a boy of his own over there with the others in
Kaludiak Bay. He's got a message written out by the boys, but the truth
is he was afraid to go to town with it. Says the renegade Aleut over
there was a good hunter, but a dangerous man--he stole their sacred
whale harpoon here and made away with it--"

"But the message!" insisted Mr. Hazlett.

So at last the old chief fumbled in his jacket, and pulled out a soiled
and crumpled paper nearly worn in bits. Enough of it at least remained
to show the searchers that when it was written the boys were all alive
and well, and were expecting help.

"The old fellow says he was expecting to take the paper up to town
sometime this fall," went on the interpreter. "Says the boys had plenty
to eat--fish and birds, and they had killed three bears--"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Captain Stephens.

"Yes, says they had killed an old she bear and two cubs, and had the
hides hung up--says the Aleut man had run away when they left--says they
all killed a whale before they left, and left the boys as well fixed as
they are here in this village. He can't understand why you should be
anxious about them, when his own boy is over there, too. Says he can
take you over there all right if you want to go."

"The little beggars!" said Mr. Hazlett, smiling for the first time in
weeks. "We may get them yet."

"Get them? Of course we will!" growled Captain Stephens. "We'll have
them aboard