rse we won't need much, for the schooner will be in any day now.
We'll smoke part of it and put the rest down in salt." He leaned back
in his chair and drew contentedly on his pipe.

"By h-hen, a smoke does taste mighty good after high-toned grub like
this," drawled Kayak, surrounding himself with a cloud.

"You men smoke too much," Ellen broke in. "Sometimes I'm convinced
that pipes bear the same relation to men that pacifiers do to babies.
At the rate you three are going, you'll be out of tobacco in no time.
If the _Hoonah_ doesn't----"

"Holy mackinaw, El! You're eternally seeing the hole in the doughnut
lately!" her husband interrupted somewhat testily. "Of course she will
be along right away. No man would leave us on this island long without
provisions. It wouldn't be human. And about smoking"--he waved an
airy hand--"why I can quit any time I want to and never miss it."

"Same here." Kayak puffed out another tobacco-scented cloud. "I'll
tell a man no measly habit ever got a strangle holt on me."

Harlan said nothing.

After breakfast the clean-up from the rockers was panned and freed from
sand. Boreland weighed the dust in the new gold scales.

"Four ounces," he announced, as they balanced. "That ought to bring us
about sixty dollars. Not bad for one day's work. If we can only find
enough of that sand we'll make a stake here, boys. Gad, I wish the
_Hoonah_ would get here so we could establish ourselves permanently."
Boreland had been trying to induce Kayak to remain with him on the
Island.

The remainder of the day was spent in getting the bear meat to the
cabin and preparing it for preservation. The Indian hut where Loll had
surprised the swallows was cleaned out and fitted up as a smoke house.
Harlan cut and brought in several back-loads of alder to furnish
hard-wood smoke to cure the meat. The women were busy indoors trying
out the fat.

After the fire in the smoke-house had been going some time, Kayak Bill
sauntered in with a can full of ashes.

"These here's hard-wood ashes, Lady," he told Ellen. "We ain't got no
white man's antiseptic medicine now, and I reckon we better make some
o' the Injine kind. Put warm water on these and let 'em stand
overnight. You'll have an antiseptic then that'll be a ringtailed
wonder, Lady."

As they worked about the house that morning Ellen and Jean discussed
the shooting of the bear. It was the sight of the monster tearing her
dog from shoulder