iary, Ruth set out
for shore to visit the captain in the hospital. She took Winters's
book along with her to read to the captain--good thing she did, as it
turned out. I stayed aboard and tackled the code. As I said, I
discovered the key after an hour's or so application. That is, I had
fathomed the checkerboard, had drawn a diagram, and had begun to
decipher. Then my much-abused body went on strike.

"You remember, I was just at the end of an extended spree. For a week
I had swum in stimulants and gone without rest. I was near a breakdown
when Kim Chee took me in hand. The discovery of the log braced me up.
But all of a sudden, while I was working here in the cabin, over that
scrap of reindeer skin, I collapsed.

"I called for Ichi and ordered black coffee. I remember he answered my
call by materializing almost instantly at my side. He must have been
lingering behind my chair--though I do not recollect seeing him about
the cabin after Ruth left for shore. He brought me a large cup of
black coffee. I drank it, and went promptly to sleep. It may have
been a drug, or it may have been nature having her way with me."

"It was drugged coffee the Jap gave you," stated Captain Dabney with
finality. "I know those yellow imps!"

Martin started at the blind man's sudden interjection into the
conversation. Since he had concluded his story, Captain Dabney had sat
listening, immobile and silent. At times Martin had suspected him of
dozing. But now, his emphatic outburst proved that he had followed
Little Billy's words closely.

"That Ichi lad was no dunderhead," continued the captain. "He was
playing a part aboard here. He was commissioned by that Hakodate crowd
to discover our trading points--if this ambergrease affair hadn't
turned up and tempted him, he would have stayed with us and made the
trip north this Summer. Then next year a couple of Jap schooners would
have gone ahead of us, peddling booze to the tribes, and killing the
goose that laid the golden egg. Blast their yellow hides! I never
traded with a trustworthy Jap in my life."

"Yes, he was doubtless a spy of the syndicate," assented Little Billy.
"Certainly he was playing a part aboard here, for when I ran across him
yesterday morning, in Frisco, he was anything but the cookie of a
wind-jammer, and his English showed a remarkable improvement.

"In any event, whether Ichi drugged my coffee or not, I was dead to the
world as soon as I swallow