the lamp lighted the narrow cabin looked very cozy after the desolate land; but conversation languished, for the men were anxious and somewhat depressed. Daylight would show them whether or not their work had been thrown away. With so much at stake it was hard to wait.

“As soon as we’ve found if she’s still on the bank,” Moran said, as they were arranging their blankets on the lockers, “we’ll get out the net and all the lines we brought; then I guess we had better keep the diving pump in a hole on the beach.”

“I suppose we must fish and save our stores,” Jimmy agreed; “though the worst beef they ever packed in Chicago would be a luxurious change. But what’s your reason for putting the pump ashore?”

Moran was not a humorous man, but he smiled.

“Well,” he said, “we certainly haven’t a lien on the wreck, and if it was known where she’s now lying, we’d soon have a steamboat up from Portland or Vancouver with proper salvage truck. This island’s off the track to the Alaska ports; but, so far’s my experience goes, it’s when you least want folks around that they turn up.”

“He’s right,” Bethune declared. “There’s no reason why we should make our object plain to anybody who may come along. I don’t know much about the salvage laws, but my opinion is that the underwriters would treat us fairly if we brought back the gold; and if we couldn’t come to terms with them, the courts would make us an award. Still, there’s need for caution; we have nobody’s authority, and might be asked why we didn’t report the find instead of going off to get what we could on the quiet.”

They went to sleep soon after this, and awakening in a few hours, found dawn breaking; for when the lonely waters are free from ice there is very little night in the North. A thin fog hid the land, leaving visible only a strip of wet beach, and there was still no wind, which Moran seemed to consider somewhat remarkable. As the tide was falling, Jimmy suggested that they should launch the dory and row off at once to look for the wreck; but Moran objected.

“It’s a long pull, and we don’t want to lose time,” he said. “S’pose we find her? We couldn’t work the pump from the boat, and we’d have to come back for the sloop. You don’t often strike it calm here, and we have to get ahead while we can.”

The others agreed; and after a hurried breakfast they hove the anchor and made a start, Moran sculling the Cetacea, Jimmy and Bethune 

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