long raw-hide laces snaked along
behind his boots, and clouds of tobacco smoke enveloped him.

"Well," he said gently, "I reckon there ain't no useless good
vocabulatin' about that varmint, Silvertip. I should a-known better'n
to trust a man o' his moth-eaten morals, anyhow."

Ellen stooped down to pick up the map which had fallen unheeded to the
sand. For a moment she traced the beachline with her forefinger,
reading the penciled names from the paper. "Sunset Point. Skeleton
Rib. . . . Well, at least we know where to look for the cabin, Shane."
She looked up decisively. "Let's find it before anything else happens
to us."

Ten minutes later the two men had disappeared behind the western
sand-dunes, and as if to assure them of his confidence in the future,
Boreland's voice, raised: a quavering Irish melody floated back to the
camp where Ellen and Jean were spreading the blankets upon the sand.
They were weary from their night's work. With Kobuk on guard they
curled up beside Lollie, and lulled by the far-away calls of the gulls
and the ceaseless chant of the sea, were soon fast asleep. . . .

The hoo-hooing of Boreland and Kayak Bill two hours later awakened the
sleepers before the men reached camp.

"Everything is lovely and the goose hangs high!" Boreland cheerily
answered their questions. "We found the cabin all right and tonight we
all sleep in our own little wickie!"

The pale-green combers that were breaking for miles out on the shoals,
made it impossible to think of using the whale-boat. Therefore,
immediately after lunch, the party started on the three-mile walk, each
one carrying a pack. Jean, with her violin and a scarlet blanket
strapped across her strong young shoulders, stopped in the trail again
and again to laugh at her smaller sister, nearly obliterated under two
feather pillows. Loll, important as the head packer of a Government
party, carried a pot of cold beans in his hand, and encouraged Kobuk,
whose pack-saddle was filled with necessary odds and ends for the
night's camp. The sheet-iron stove, with food and cooking utensils
inside, made a noisy, rattling pack on Boreland's back, leaving his
hands free for his shot-gun which he carried for the ducks that were
flying south. Kayak Bill shouldered a roll of blankets with an ease
which many a younger man might have envied. He was balancing the broom
across his palm when his eye fell on the pigeon. He picked up the cage
with his free