l right," answered Wilbur, before he could collect his
thoughts. But the Captain thought he had reference to the "Bertha."

"I mean the kid we found in the wheel-box. He doesn't count in our
salvage. The bark's been abandoned as plain as paint. If I thought he
stood in our way," and Kitchell's jaw grew salient. "I'd shut him in
the cabin with the old man a spell, till he'd copped off. Now then, son,
first thing to do is to chop vents in this yere house."

"Hold up--we can do better than that," said Wilbur, restraining
Kitchell's fury of impatience. "Slide the big skylight off--it's loose
already."

A couple of the schooner's hands were ordered aboard the "Lady Letty,"
and the skylight removed. At first the pour of gas was terrific, but by
degrees it abated, and at the end of half an hour Kitchell could keep
back no longer.

"Come on!" he cried, catching up an axe; "rot the difference." All
the plundering instincts of the man were aroused and clamoring. He had
become a very wolf within scent of its prey--a veritable hyena nuzzling
about its carrion.

"Lord!" he gasped, "t' think that everything we see, everything we find,
is ours!"

Wilbur himself was not far behind him in eagerness. Somewhere deep down
in the heart of every Anglo-Saxon lies the predatory instinct of his
Viking ancestors--an instinct that a thousand years of respectability
and taxpaying have not quite succeeded in eliminating.

A flight of six steps, brass-bound and bearing the double L of the
bark's monogram, led them down into a sort of vestibule. From the
vestibule a door opened directly into the main cabin. They entered.

The cabin was some twenty feet long and unusually spacious. Fresh from
his recollection of the grime and reek of the schooner, it struck Wilbur
as particularly dainty. It was painted white with stripes of blue, gold
and pea-green. On either side three doors opened off into staterooms and
private cabins, and with each roll of the derelict these doors banged
like an irregular discharge of revolvers. In the centre was the
dining-table, covered with a red cloth, very much awry. On each side of
the table were four arm chairs, screwed to the deck, one somewhat larger
at the head. Overhead, in swinging racks, were glasses and decanters of
whiskey and some kind of white wine. But for one feature the sight of
the "Letty's" cabin was charming. However, on the floor by the sliding
door in the forward bulkhead lay a body, face upward.