two men carrying bags and cases out of it under
the superintendence of a third in some kind of uniform, and it appeared
to be unguarded. Wyllard, who had reasons for surmising that the few
settlements on the coast were under strict official control, fancied
that the store contained Government supplies, and had arranged that
Charly and Lewson should break into it as soon as darkness fell, and
pull off to the schooner with anything they could find inside. Whether
they would succeed in doing this he did not know, and he admitted to
himself that it scarcely seemed probable, but he could think of no
other plan, and the attempt must be made.

In the meanwhile a thin haze drove across the crest of the rise, the
breeze freshened slightly, and the little ripples lapped more noisily
along the shingle. There was evidently a good deal of fresh water
coming down the inlet, and it was in a fever of impatience he watched
the schooner strain at her cable. That evening had already seemed the
longest he had ever spent in his life. By and bye it commenced to
rain, and little streams of chilly water trickled about the weary men,
but they lay still, with lips tight set, in tense suspense. What
Lewson had had to face in the awful icy wastes to the north of them
Wyllard could scarcely imagine, and Lewson could not tell, but he and
his two other comrades had borne things almost beyond endurance since
he commenced his search, and now there was far too much at stake for
him to increase the odds against them by any undue precipitancy. He
was then in a dangerous mood, but he had laid his plans with grim,
cold-blooded caution, and he meant to adhere to them.

At length, and very slowly, the light faded, until the beach grew
shadowy, and the schooner's spars and rigging showed dim and blurred
against a dusky background. The rise that shut off the settlement was
lost in drifting haze, and the dull rumble of the surf on the outer
beach came up more sharply through the gathering darkness. The
measured beat of its deep pulsations almost maddened Wyllard as he lay
and listened, for if all went right he would be sliding out over the
long heave with every sail piled on to the crazy schooner in another
hour or two.

At length, when there was only a faint gleam of water sliding by below,
he rose stiffly to his feet, and Lewson stretched out a hand for the
rifle that lay among the stones. There was a sharp click as he jerked
the lever, and then h