through the
Kuriles into the Yellow Sea. They got ice-bound somewhere, which
explains why Dunton fetched Vancouver only a week ago."

"But the message?"

"When they were in the thick of their troubles they hove to not far off
the icy beach, and a Husky came down on them in some kind of boat."

"A Husky?" repeated Wyllard, who knew the seaman meant an Esquimau.

"That's what Dunton called him, but I guess he must have been a
Kamtchadale or a Koriak. Anyway, he brought this strip of willow, and he
had Tom Lewson's watch. Dunton traded him something for it. They
couldn't make much of what he said except that he'd got the message from
three white men somewhere along the beach. They couldn't make out how
long ago."

"Dunton tried for them?"

"How could he? His vessel would hardly look at the wind, and the ice was
piling up on the coast close to lee of him. He hung on a week or two
with the floes driving in all the while, and then it freshened hard and
blew him out."

The stranger had told his story, and Wyllard, who rose with a quick
gesture of deep anxiety, stood leaning on his chairback. His face was
grave.

"That," he said, "must have been eight or nine months ago."

"It was. They've been up there since the night we couldn't pick up the
boat."

"It's unthinkable," declared Wyllard. "The thing can't be true."

The seaman gravely produced a little common metal watch made in
Connecticut, and worth five or six dollars. Opening it, he pointed to a
name scratched inside it.

"You can't get over that," he said simply.

Wyllard strode up and down the room. When he sat down again with a
clenched hand laid upon the table he and the seaman looked at each other
steadily for a moment or two. Then the stranger made a significant
gesture.

"You sent them," he said, "what are you going to do?"

"I'm going for them."

The sailor smiled. "I knew it would be that. You'll have to start right
away if it's to be done this year. I've my eye upon a schooner."

He lighted a cigar, and settled himself more comfortably in his chair.
"Well," he answered, "I'm going with you, but you'll have to buy my
ticket to Vancouver. It cleaned me out to get here. We'd a difficulty
with a blame gunboat last season, and the boss went back on me.
Sealing's not what is used to be. Anyway, we can fix the thing up later.
I won't keep you from your friends."

Wyllard left the sailor and though he did not find Mrs. Hastings
immediately, he came