ew inches below the surface, on which nothing beyond
the mosses ever grew. It was easy to understand the brain-crushing
sameness and monotony of an existence checkered only by times of dire
scarcity on those lonely shores.

"How did you live?" he asked.

"There were the birds in summer, and fish in the rivers. In winter we
killed things in the lanes in the ice, though there were weeks when we
lay about the blubber lamp in the pits. They made pits and put a roof on
them. I don't know why we staked there, but Jake had always a notion
that we might get across to Alaska--somehow. We were way out on the ice
one day when Jim fell into a crevice, and we couldn't get him out."

He stopped, and sat still a while as one dreaming. "I can't put things
together, but at last we came south, Jake and I, and struck the
Kamtchadales again. We could talk to them, and one of them told us about
a schooner lying in an inlet by a settlement. The Russians had brought
her there from the islands, and she must have been a sealer. Jake
figured it was just possible we might run away with her and push across
for the Aleutians or Alaska."

Charly looked up suddenly. "She--was--a sealer--Hayson's _Seminole_. I
was in Victoria when we heard that the Russians had seized her."

Wyllard turned to Overweg, who nodded when he asked a question in
French.

"Yes," he said, "I believe the vessel lies in the inlet still. They have
used her now and then. It is understood that they were warranted in
seizing her, but I think there was some diplomatic pressure brought to
bear on them, for they sent her crew home."

Lewson went on again. "Food was scarce that season, and we got 'most
nothing in the traps," he said. "Besides, there were Russians out
prospecting, and that headed us off. We figured that some of the
Kamtchadales who traded skins to the settlements would put them on our
trail. When we went to look for the boat she'd gone, but we hadn't much
notion of getting off in her, though another time--I don't remember
when--we gave two Kamtchadales messages we'd cut on slips of wood.
Sometimes the schooners stood in along the coast."

Wyllard nodded. "Dunton of the _Cypress_ got your message," he said. "He
was in difficulties then, but he afterwards sent it me."

"Well," said Lewson, "there isn't much more to it. We hung about the
beach a while, and then went north before the winter. Jake played out on
the trail. By and by he had to let up, and in a day or