e man of whom he had heard so many strange conflicting stories.
But long ago he had come to the conclusion that possibly half of the
bad things said about the McGee by his enemies could hardly be true.
They hated and feared him so much that his faults were undoubtedly
magnified many fold; while his virtues remained unsung.

He would see for himself. And judging from the way things were coming
on, the crisis could not be long withheld now.

That caused Phil to remember that he had a chum aboard the Aurora. It
seemed hardly fair that Larry should be kept in utter ignorance up to
the very moment when the mine were sprung. The shock must be all the
more severe under such conditions; and Larry would not be saved any
agony of mind by the delay.

So Phil leaned over and shook the sleeper.

"Let up on that, Lanky!" grumbled Larry, who had doubtless been
dreaming he was once more with some of his comrades at home; "I ain't
agoin' to move, I tell yuh. Get breakfast first, and then call me. Go
'way!"

But Phil only renewed his shaking.

"Wake up, Larry!" he called softly; "the shingle-makers have come to
board us! Get a move on, can't you?"

A startled exclamation, followed by a great upheaval, told that Larry
had now grappled with the truth.

"W--where, which, how, why? Tell me, Phil, what's that fire doing down
there? Oh! I hope now they ain't getting it hot for us, the tar, I
mean!" he gasped, as he stared in the quarter where all those moving
figures could be seen between the blaze and themselves.

"Oh, rats! get that out of your mind, Larry!" observed Phil, though
truth to tell, it had cropped up in his own brain more than a few times
to give him a bit of worry.

"They begin tuh come this way!" said Tony, with a catch in his voice,
as though he were keyed up to a nervous tension because of the
situation.

Phil could see this for himself, because there was a general movement
among the various figures around the signal fire.

Larry was heard moving restlessly. Perhaps he could not get it out of
his mind that the fire had really been started so as to heat up the
dreadful tar, with which he and his chum were to be smeared before the
squatters made them into uncouth birds by the addition of a shower of
feathers, taken from some old broken pillow; and then turned them loose
to continue their voyage down-stream.

Yes, the gathered clan of the McGee was certainly marching in the
direction of the tied-up mot