strangers peering into,” was the calm reply. “You know you were not invited on board.”

Raynor felt a sudden twinge of remorse. After all, he owed his life to this man. He began to thank him but the other silenced him with the wave of a hand.

“That was nothing. Anyhow, I got a fine bear pelt out of it. One of the finest I ever saw. But to get down to business. Have you any idea where you are?”

“On board the schooner Polly Ann,” rejoined Raynor, with an oddly uncomfortable feeling.

“True enough, but do you know anything about her?”

Raynor shook his head.

“Well, she’s Terror Carson’s craft. I’m Terror Carson. If you’d ever been in the northern seas, where we are bound, you’d have heard of me.”

The man uttered his sinister name with some pride. He squared his huge shoulders and stroked his glowing beard with evident satisfaction. Raynor felt his heart sink. There was something wrong about this schooner and this man.

“You are going north trading?” he asked, intending to demand being put aboard the first steamer or other vessel bound for the states that they encountered.

Terror Carson burst into a mighty laugh that seemed to shake the cabin timbers.

“Yes, we’re going trading. Trading in our own line,” he said, and then he beckoned to Raynor to come out into the main cabin from which six smaller ones, similar to the one the young engineer had occupied, opened.

“See those?” he asked, and pointed to three bright brass cannons that were ranged at the stern inside closed ports. “We use those in our trading. You see we are what the courts of law and the international boundary authorities call: ‘seal poachers.’”

“Seal poachers!” Raynor shrank back. He had heard of these wild, lawless men of the north who defied the international boundary rules and even war-ships sent to enforce them. Not a few of them, as he knew, had been captured after hard chases and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. He could hardly bring himself to speak his next words.

“But of course you will put me on board the first vessel we sight,” he said, “you see, Captain Carson, I——”

“Oh, no, we can’t lose you now,” chuckled the 

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