ore confusing did his
statements become. Just as he would settle positively--after much
thinking and much looking at the sun and the coast line--on a particular
spot, doubts would arise in his mind as to the correctness of his
location; and these doubts presently would resolve themselves into
the certainty that he was all wrong. Then the process of thinking and
looking would begin all over again, only again to come to the same
disheartening end. The short and long of the matter was that we spent
all that day and a good part of the next in wandering along the bay-side
in Old Jacob's wake, while he made and unmade his locations at the
rate of about three an hour. At last I looked at Gregory Wilkinson and
Gregory Wilkinson looked at me, and we both nodded. Then we told Old
Jacob that we guessed we'd better hitch up the horses and drive home. It
made us pretty dismal, after all our hopes, to hitch up the horses and
drive home that way.

My heart ached when I saw Susan leaning over the front gate watching for
us as we drove up the road. The wind was setting down towards us, and I
could smell the coffee that she had put on the fire to boil as soon as
she caught sight of us--Susan made coffee splendidly--and I knew that
she had kept her promise, and had ready the feast that was to celebrate
our success; and that made it all the dismaller that we hadn't any
success to celebrate.

When I told her how badly the expedition had turned out she came very
near crying; but she gave a sort of gulp, and then laughed instead, and
did what she could to make things pleasant for us. We had our feast, but
notwithstanding Susan's effort to be cheerful, it was about as dreary a
feast as I ever had anything to do with. We brought Old Jacob in and let
him feast with us; and he, to do him justice, was not dreary at all.
He seemed to enjoy it thoroughly. Indeed, the most trying part of that
sorrowful supper-party was the way in which Old Jacob recovered his
spirits and declared at short intervals that his memory now was
all right again. He even went so far as to say that with his eyes
blindfolded and in the dark he could lead us to the precise spot off
which the schooner used to lie.

Susan was disposed to regard these assertions hopefully; but we, who
had been fumbling about with him for two days, well understood their
baselessness. It was not Old Jacob's fault, of course, but his defective
memory certainly was dreadfully provoking. Here was an