attached its outer end to a big keg buoy.

Getting under way, they headed for the bight, and presently saw a white gig following them.

“They won’t stay long,” said Bethune. “Want fresh water, or, perhaps, a walk ashore; but it’s a pity we have no time to land and hide the pumps. The best thing we can do is to meet the party at the water’s edge. It’s lucky the big net is lying there.”

Pulling ashore in the dory, they waited for the yacht’s boat, which carried two uniformed seamen and a young man smartly dressed in blue serge with bronze buttons, and pipeclayed shoes. He had a good-humored look, and greeted them affably, glancing at the net.

“Glad to find somebody here; you’re fishing, I suppose?” he said. “You’ll know where there’s water, and ours is getting short. The engineer has had some trouble with salting boilers and won’t give us any. I’ll take some fish, if you can spare it.”

Bethune laughed.

“You can have all we’ve got,” he said. “Any we keep we’ll have to eat, and we’re getting pretty tired of the diet. There’s a good spring behind the ridge; we’ll show you where it is.”

The man beckoned the seamen, who shouldered two brass-hooped breakers, and the party set off up the beach. When they reached the spring the seamen returned with the breakers to empty them into the boat, using her as a tank to carry the water off, and Jimmy took the yachtsman into a hut they had roughly built of stones between two big rocks. Here they sometimes lived when wind or fog stopped their work. He gave them some cigars and told them that the yacht was returning from a trip to the North, where they had explored several of the glaciers. He was a bit of a naturalist and interested in birds, and that was why he had come ashore; but the desolate appearance of the island had deterred his friends, who were playing cards.

“Have you noticed any of the rarer sea-birds here?” he asked.

“There are a number of nests some distance off,” Bethune answered. “I don’t know what kind they are, but after making two or three attempts to eat them, I can’t recommend the eggs.”

The yachtsman laughed.

“You may have made omelettes of specimens collectors would give a good deal for. Anyway, I’d be glad if you would show me the place. As we must take off as much water as she’ll carry, the boys will be busy for 

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