ist
listened to Wyllard's story gravely, and then appeared to consider.

"You have some plans?" he asked.

Wyllard admitted that this was the case, and Overweg smiled behind his
spectacles.

"It is, perhaps, better that you should not tell me what they are," he
said. "There is, however, one thing I can do. You say you left some
stores you could not carry at the depot, which I will take, for
provisions are now not plentiful with me, but at my base camp there are
still a few things you have not which are almost necessary, and"--he
made a gesture of reassuring significance--"after all, if I have to go
south a little earlier than I intended it is not a great matter."

He wrote on a strip of paper which he handed to Wyllard. "You will take
these, and nothing else. I may add that Smirnoff is stationed at the
inlet where the schooner lies."

Wyllard thanked him, and then looked him in the eyes. "There is a long
journey before us, and you have only my word that I will take nothing
but these things."

Overweg nodded quietly. "Yes," he said, "it is perhaps permissible to
assure you that it is sufficient for me."

Little more was said, and in another half-hour Wyllard and his
companions were ready to set out. He and the little spectacled scientist
grasped each other's hands, and then Wyllard abruptly turned away.
Looking back a few minutes later, he saw Overweg standing upon the ridge
where he had left him, silhouetted against a low, gray sky. The
scientist raised his cap once, and Wyllard, who answered him, swung
around once more, and strode faster towards the south.

CHAPTER XXX

THE LAST EFFORT

It was after a long and arduous journey which had left its mark on all
of them that Wyllard and his companions, one lowering evening, lay among
the boulders beside a sheltered inlet waiting for the dusk to fall. They
were cramped and aching, for they had scarcely moved during the last
hour. Their garments were badly tattered, and their half-covered feet
were bleeding. With three knives and one rifle among them they were a
pitiful company to seize a vessel, but there was resolution in their
haggard faces.

Close in front of them the green water lapped softly among the stones.
The breeze was light off shore, and the tide, which was just running
ebb, rippled against the bows of a little schooner lying some thirty
yards from the bank. The vessel had been seized for illegal sealing some
years earlier, and it was eviden