w at once that this must
be it.

And certainly this ocean prairie was a wonderful sight. As the steamer
ploughed its way through the matted weeds, Frank could see in the narrow
openings their trailing roots hanging far down into the clear cool
depths below. Above these open spaces thousands of sea-birds were
hovering with shrill cries, while ever and anon one of them would swoop
down into the water, re-appearing instantly with a fish wriggling in its
beak.

In the purple shadow of the weed beds bright-colored fish were moving
lazily to and fro, but these darted swiftly away at the approach of the
steamer. On every side queer little crabs and turtles were plumping into
the water, scared by the plashing wheels, while, stranger still, birds'
nests and eggs were seen here and there amid the huge broad leaves of
the stronger plants, to the great delight of Frank, who thought the idea
of birds nesting in the middle of the Atlantic the finest joke he had
ever heard.

A mass of the tangle was hauled on board, and the men amused themselves
by stamping on the hollow air-cells which give the weed its buoyancy,
producing a series of cracks like the explosion of fire-crackers.

"I've heerd tell, though I can't say I've seen it myself," observed a
sailor, "as there's places whar them weeds are so thick and strong that
a man can walk on 'em all the same as dry land."

"Well, they can stop a ship, anyhow, whether they can carry a man or
not. A chum of mine as v'y'ged here in a Portigee steamer told me that
she once got reg'lar jammed among the weed, and only 'scaped by
reversin' her en_gines_."

"Well, it's a fact that some whar in these seas there's a place they
call the Lumber Yard, 'cause of all the driftwood and floatin' spars and
bits o' wreck and sich gittin' jumbled up together; for all the currents
sort o' meet there, like them puzzles whar every road leads in and none
out. If a ship once gits in _there_, good-by to her; for there ain't no
wind, nor tide, nor nothin', and you jist stick there till you rot."

Here old Herrick muttered, dreamily, as if speaking to himself, "_I_'ve
seen that, and I sha'n't forget it in a hurry."

The men nudged each other, and there was a general silence; for it was
but seldom that Herrick could be got to spin a yarn, and he was now
evidently about to "get off" one of his best.

"I was cruising in these waters," he went on, "'bout twenty years ago,
when one afternoon we sighted a sort o