ry of "Now she takes it!" we were
heaped upon the wall of the port cabins as though it had been the deck.

"To hell with a look-out," I heard Wolf Larsen say when we had eaten and
drunk our fill. "There's nothing can be done on deck. If anything's
going to run us down we couldn't get out of its way. Turn in, all hands,
and get some sleep."

The sailors slipped forward, setting the side-lights as they went, while
the two hunters remained to sleep in the cabin, it not being deemed
advisable to open the slide to the steerage companion-way. Wolf Larsen
and I, between us, cut off Kerfoot's crushed finger and sewed up the
stump. Mugridge, who, during all the time he had been compelled to cook
and serve coffee and keep the fire going, had complained of internal
pains, now swore that he had a broken rib or two. On examination we
found that he had three. But his case was deferred to next day,
principally for the reason that I did not know anything about broken ribs
and would first have to read it up.

"I don't think it was worth it," I said to Wolf Larsen, "a broken boat
for Kelly's life."

"But Kelly didn't amount to much," was the reply. "Good-night."

After all that had passed, suffering intolerable anguish in my
finger-ends, and with three boats missing, to say nothing of the wild
capers the _Ghost_ was cutting, I should have thought it impossible to
sleep. But my eyes must have closed the instant my head touched the
pillow, and in utter exhaustion I slept throughout the night, the while
the _Ghost_, lonely and undirected, fought her way through the storm.

CHAPTER XVIII

The next day, while the storm was blowing itself out, Wolf Larsen and I
crammed anatomy and surgery and set Mugridge's ribs. Then, when the
storm broke, Wolf Larsen cruised back and forth over that portion of the
ocean where we had encountered it, and somewhat more to the westward,
while the boats were being repaired and new sails made and bent. Sealing
schooner after sealing schooner we sighted and boarded, most of which
were in search of lost boats, and most of which were carrying boats and
crews they had picked up and which did not belong to them. For the thick
of the fleet had been to the westward of us, and the boats, scattered far
and wide, had headed in mad flight for the nearest refuge.

Two of our boats, with men all safe, we took off the _Cisco_, and, to
Wolf Larsen's huge delight and my own grief, he culled Smoke, with