ld.

With the tools at hand they could not supply the rapacious fires fast
enough to keep up steam, and the engines slowed to a five-knot rate. As
this would not maintain a sufficient tension on the dragging schooner
to steer by, they were forced to sacrifice the best item in their claim
for salvage: they spliced the tiller-ropes and steered from the
pilot-house. They would have sacrificed the schooner, too, for Amos
complained bitterly of the load on the engines; but Elisha would not
hear of it. She was the last evidence in their favor now, their last
connection with respectability.

"She and the pavement o' h----l," he growled fiercely, "are all we've
got to back us up. Without proof we're pirates under the law."

However, he made no entry in the log of the splicing, trusting that a
chance would come in port to remove the section of wire rope with which
they had joined the broken ends.

And, indeed, it seemed that their claim was dwindling. The chronometer
which they were to use for the steamer's benefit was lost; the tow-line
which they were to furnish had been given back to them; the course to
New York which they chalked out had not been accepted; the abandoning
of their ship by the Englishmen was clearly enforced by the pressure of
their own presence; and now they themselves had been forced to cancel
from the claim the schooner's value as a necessary drag behind the
steamer, by substituting a three hours' splicing-job, worth five
dollars in a rigging-loft, and possibly fifty if bargained for at sea.
Nothing was left them now but their good intentions, duly entered in
the log-book.

But fate, and the stupid understanding of some one or two of them,
decreed that their good intentions also should be taken from them. The
log-book disappeared, and the strictest search failing to bring it to
light, the conclusion was reached that it had been fed to the fires
among the wreckage of the skipper's room and furniture. They blasphemed
to the extent that the occasion required, and there was civil war for a
time, while the suspected ones were being punished; then they drew what
remaining comfort they could from burning the steamer's log-book and
track-chart, which contained data conflicting with their position in
the case, and resumed their labors.

Martin had raked and scraped together enough of food to give them two
scant meals; but these eaten, starvation began. The details of their
suffering need not be given. They ch