's vexatious delay while they awaited the St.
John's steamer, but at last it came, and at last they were on board the
schooner _Gull_ in St. John's harbor, and at last the _Gull_ was plowing
northward past stately icebergs glimmering in the sunshine, and vagrant
pans of ice rising and falling on the swell, and home was drawing near.

CHAPTER XXX

THE MYSTERY CLEARED

How slowly those last days dragged away! Bobby could scarcely restrain
his impatience. But one day in the middle of July Itigailit Island was
sighted, and that evening the _Gull_ anchored in its lee. Abel Zachariah
had not come out to his fishing yet, and the island was bare and
deserted. Bobby's emotion nearly got the better of him when he
remembered that stormy winter's day when he had last been here, with
Skipper Ed and Jimmy.

They launched a motor boat with which they had provided themselves, and
went ashore for a half hour, while Bobby pointed out Abel's landing
place, and the place where they always pitched their tent, and where the
snow _igloo_ had stood. The seals were gone, so Bobby knew Skipper Ed
and Abel had hauled them home before the ice broke up.

And then Bobby took his friends to see the grave, and the cairn he had
built over it, and for a little they stood, in silence and in pity for
the nameless man who lay there.

Day comes early in this latitude at this season, and at two o'clock, in
the morning twilight, anchor was weighed, sails hoisted before a good
fair breeze, and the _Gull_ was plowing her way into Abel's Bay, with
Bobby as pilot, for he knew its waters as you and I know our city
streets. And what old friends the distant mountains and headlands
seemed, as he pointed them out to his companions!

It was mid-afternoon when the _Gull_ at last approached the head of
Abel's Bay, and in the distance the two cabins gradually came into view.
Skipper Ed's cabin was the nearer, and their course was laid toward it,
and presently two figures were discerned at the boat landing.

"That's the Skipper on the left!" exclaimed Bobby. "I know him because
he's so tall! The other must be Father, but he doesn't look like
Father, either!"

And then, standing intently gazing at the men, he suddenly shouted:

"It's Jimmy! Oh, it's Jimmy! He was saved! He was saved! He was saved!
Oh, thank God, he was saved!"

And in spite of himself tears of joy sprang to Bobby's eyes, and he
leaned over the rail and shouted and shouted, and waved his