ied. God meant that we should have
a child."

"Yes," agreed Abel. "It was God's way of giving us a child for our own.
But why did He send a man with the boy and a dead man, at that?"

"I do not know," said Mrs. Abel, "but there was some reason, I suppose.
The child has a skin so white and its clothes are so fine, I am sure it
must have come from Heaven. We know it came from the Far Beyond, for you
say the man was not a fisherman, and the boat is not a fisherman's
boat."

This was an awe-inspiring solution of the mystery, and Abel and his
wife accepted it with due solemnity. A suggestion of the miraculous
appealed to them, for they did not in the least believe that the days of
miracles were past, as indeed they are not. They had already, with big,
hospitable hearts, accepted the child as their own. Now, believing that
it was a gift from Heaven, sent directly to them by God, as a token of
particular favor, they would not have parted from it for all the riches
in the world.

The afternoon was far spent when, at last, Abel, in his skiff, rowed out
to the anchored derelict and brought it in again to the landing place.
Here a search of the boat discovered, in addition to the blankets which
had formed the boy's bed, the water jug, the tin cup, and biscuit bag, a
quantity of loaded shotgun shells and a double-barreled shotgun. The
shotgun, which had been hidden in the bottom of the boat by the folds of
a sail, called forth an exclamation of delight from Abel. It was a
marvel of workmanship, and its stock and lock were beautifully engraved.
And with the sail, which would prove useful, was a tarpaulin and a
quantity of rope.

In the pockets of the dead man were a jackknife, a small notebook, a
piece of pencil, and an empty wallet. Nothing which seemed important,
but all of which Abel preserved carefully as a future heritage for the
boy.

There were no boards from which to fashion a coffin, so they wrapped the
unknown in an old sail, and that evening, when the western sky was aglow
with color buried him in the grave Abel had made. And over the grave
Abel read in Eskimo a chapter from the Testament, and said a prayer, and
to the doleful accompaniment of lapping waves upon the shore he and Mrs.
Abel sang, in Eskimo, one of the old hymns for, as Christians, they must
needs give the stranger a Christian burial, the only service they could
render him.

Abel and his wife looked upon the advent of the little boy as a Divine
ble