ut, after all, the ship's safety is essential to
your survey."

"Every hour strengthens my opinion," was the confident reply. "Suarez
says that there is a reasonable chance of occasional brief spells of
fine weather at this period of the year. At any rate, the gale may not
be absolutely continuous, and Walker is assured that he can patch up
the engines for half speed. Given a calm day, a day like this, for
instance, we can reach the Straits in a few hours."

"And the Indians?"

"I leave them out of my reckoning. What else can I do?"

"Kill 'em," said Tollemache.

Courtenay glanced sharply at his fellow-countryman. He disliked these
references to the Alaculof bogy in Elsie's presence. It was enough
that it should exist without being constantly paraded. Though the girl
herself was the culprit, Tollemache should have left the topic alone.

But Tollemache was a man of fixed ideas. The device of canvas shields
to repel boarders had set him thinking how much more effective it would
be if the savages were kept at a distance. He well knew that they
would not be deterred by a shotgun and a few revolvers, once they had
made up their minds to carry the ship by assault. To explain himself,
he was compelled to speak at some length, and his swarthy face flushed
under the unusual strain.

"We have dynamite aboard," he said. "Why not construct a couple of
infernal machines which could be fired by pulling a string, and let
them drift towards the canoes when the Indians are near enough?"

"It is worth trying," was Courtenay's brief comment, though he saw
later that Tollemache's suggestion was a very useful one.

Elsie's first task was to prepare a large-scale drawing of the southern
part of Hanover Island, as set forth in Admiralty Chart No. 1837 (Sheet
2, Patagonia), which is the only trustworthy record available for
shipmasters using the outer passage between the Gulf of Penas and the
Straits of Magellan. It was a simple matter to fill in the few
contours given. The neighboring small islands were shown in reasonable
detail, but the whole western coast of Hanover Island itself consisted
of a dotted line and a solitary peak, Stokes Mountain, the height of
which could be estimated and its position triangulated from the sea.
Even Concepcion Straits on the north and the San Blas Channel on the
south were marked in those significant dotted lines. The coast was
practically unknown to civilized man. One of the last for