nced to notice that she was speaking to him.

"Rotten," he said.

Perhaps he wondered why Miss Maxwell flushed and the others laughed.
But, in actual fact, he was not far wrong in his curious choice of an
adjective that morning. Dr. Christobal's dismal foreboding had been
justified on the second day out. Leaden clouds, a sullen sea, and
occasional puffs of a stinging breeze from the southwest, offered a
sorry exchange for the sunny skies of Chile.

Though the _Kansas_ was not a fast ship, she could have made the
entrance to the Straits on the evening of the fourth day were not
Captain Courtenay wishful to navigate the most dangerous part of the
narrows by daylight. His intent, therefore, was to pick up the
Evangelistas light about midnight, and then crack ahead at fourteen
knots, so as to be off Felix Point on Desolation Island by dawn.

This was not only a prudent and seamanlike course but it would conduce
to the comfort of the passengers. The ship was now running into a
stiff gale. Each hour the sea became heavier, and even the eight
thousand tons of the _Kansas_ felt the impact of the giant rollers on
her starboard bow. Dinner, therefore, promised to be a meal of much
discomfort, cheered only by the knowledge that as soon as the vessel
reached the lee of Desolation Island the giant waves of the Pacific
would lose their power, and all on board would enjoy a quiet night's
rest.

There were no absentees at the table. Dr. Christobal strove to enliven
the others with the promise of peace ere many hours had passed.

"Pay no heed to those fellows!" he cried, as the ship quivered under
the blow of a heavy sea, and they heard the thud of many tons of water
breaking over the bows and fore hatch, while the defeated monster
washed the tightly screwed ports with a venomous swish. "They cannot
harm us now. Let us rather thank kindly Providence which provided
Magellan's water-way; think what it would mean were we compelled to
weather the Cape."

"I am beginning to catch on to the reasonableness of that toast of
yours, doctor," said one of the mining engineers, a young American. "I
happen to be a tee-totaler, but I don't mind opening a bottle of the
best for the general welfare when we shove our nose past the Cape of
the large number of young and unprotected females."

Christobal raised his hand.

"All in good time," he said. "Never halloo for the prairie until you
are clear of the forest. If the wind remains