ather than the camp itself,--was
the source of Charley's anticipated pleasure.

Not realizing this, and believing that any unusual experience would
please Charley quite as well, whether or not he was to take part in it
himself, Mr. Norton received with satisfaction the suggestion that
Charley be sent upon the Labrador cruise. This, he was satisfied, was a
solution of his difficulty. A cruise on the mail boat would be an
experience to be remembered, and he had no doubt would prove much more
interesting to Charley than the hunting expedition.

This settled, he engaged passage on the mail boat for Charley and Mr.
Wise, to the chagrin and disappointment of the latter gentleman, who was
forced, however, to accept the situation with good grace. Mr. Wise had
no love of the sea.

He was to be Charley's companion on the voyage. He was to learn the
interesting features of the coast along which the mail boat cruised, and
to explain them and point them out to Charley. In general, he was to do
his utmost to make the voyage one which Charley would remember with
pleasure.

But as Mr. Wise expressed himself to the mail boat doctor, he was
"employed as secretary and not as nurse maid." He had no intention of
shivering around in the cold. He was going to make this voyage, which
had been thrust upon him, as pleasant for himself as circumstances would
permit. He pleaded sickness, and, as Charley had complained to Barney
MacFarland, lay in his bunk reading novels, or sat in the smoking room
playing checkers with the mail boat doctor, while Charley was left to
his own resources.

It was eleven o'clock in the morning when the mail boat departed from
Pinch-In Tickle. Mr. Wise was engrossed in a particularly interesting
novel, and was so deeply buried in it that he failed to hear or respond
to the noonday call to dinner. When, an hour later, hunger called his
attention to the fact that he had not eaten, he rang for the steward,
and a liberal tip brought a satisfactory luncheon to his stateroom. Thus
it came to pass that he did not observe Charley's absence from the
dinner table.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon when, the novel at last finished,
Mr. Wise left his room to challenge the doctor to a game in the smoking
room. It was not until the six o'clock evening meal that his attention
was called to the fact that Charley, who was usually prompt at meals,
was not present.

He had no doubt Charley had gone to his room and fallen asle