had been hasty and rough. The mate had strained his back painfully.

All but the mate and the man with the broken arm, the Captain set to gathering wood and to clearing a space for a camp on the sandy point. The point was almost level and sparsely wooded with birch, mountain ash and bushes. Every tree and shrub, its summer foliage still in the bud, was wet, snow covered or ice coated. Birch bark and the dry, crumbly center of a dead tree trunk made good tinder, however. Baptiste, skilled in the art of starting a blaze under the most adverse conditions, soon had a roaring fire. By that time the snow had entirely ceased, and the clouds were breaking.

Around the big fire the men gathered to dry their clothes and warm their bodies, while a thick porridge of hulled corn and salt pork boiled in an iron kettle over a smaller blaze. The hot meal put new life into the tired men. The broken arm was reset, the minor injuries cared for, and a pole and bark shelter, with one side open to the fire, was set up. Before the lean-to was completed the sun was shining. In spite of the sharp north wind, the snow and ice were beginning to melt. A flock of black-capped chickadees were flitting about the bare-branched birches, sounding their brave, deep-throated calls, and a black and white woodpecker was hammering busily at a dead limb.

No attempt was made to repair the ship that day. Only the most necessary work was done, and the worn-out crew permitted to rest. A lonely place seemed this unknown bay or river mouth, without white man’s cabin, Indian’s bark lodge or even a wisp of smoke from any other fire. But the sheltered harbor was a welcome haven to the sorely battered ship and the exhausted sailors. Wolves howled not far from the camp that night, and next morning their tracks were found in the snow on the beach close to where the sloop lay. It would have required far fiercer enemies than the slinking, cowardly, brush wolves to disturb the rest of the tired crew of the Otter. Hugh did not even hear the beasts.

IV
THE ISLE ROYALE

Shortly after dawn work on the Otter was begun. The water was pumped out, most of the cargo piled on the beach, and the sloop hauled farther up by means of a rudely constructed windlass. Then the strained seams were calked and a few new boards put in. A tall, straight spruce was felled and trimmed to replace the broken mast, and a small mainsail devised from extra canvas. The repairs took two long days of steady labor. During that time the weather was bright, and, except in the deeply shaded places, the snow and ice disappeared rapidly.

From the very slight current in the water, Captain Bennett concluded that the place where he had taken refuge was a real bay, not a river mouth. He had not yet discovered whether he was on the mainland or an island. The repairs to his ship were of the first importance, and he postponed determining his whereabouts until the Otter was made seaworthy once more. Not a trace of human beings had been found. The boldness of the wolves and lynxes, that came close to the camp every night, indicated that no one, red or white, was in the habit of visiting this lonely spot.

On the third day the sloop was launched, anchored a little way from shore and rigged. While the reloading was going on, under the eyes of the mate, the Captain, with Baptiste and Hugh at the oars, set out in the small boat for the harbor mouth.

The shore along which they rowed was, at first, wooded to the water line. As they went farther out and the bay widened, the land they were skirting rose more steeply, edged with sheer rocks, cliffs and great boulders. From time to time Captain Bennett glanced up at the abrupt rocks and forested ridges on his right, or across to the lower land on the other side of the bay. Directly ahead, some miles across the open lake, he could see a distant, detached bit of land, an island undoubtedly. Most of the time, however, his eyes were on the water. He was endeavoring to locate the treacherous reefs and shallows he must avoid when he took his ship out of her safe harbor.

An exclamation from Baptiste, who had turned his head to look to the west and north, recalled the Captain from his study of the unfamiliar waters. Beyond the tip of the opposite or northwestern shore of the bay, far across the blue lake to the north, two dim, misty shapes had come into view.

“Islands!” Captain Bennett exclaimed. “High, towering islands.”

Baptiste and Hugh pulled on with vigorous strokes. Presently the Captain spoke again. “Islands or headlands. Go farther out.”

The two bent to their oars. As they passed beyond the end of the low northwestern shore, more high land came into view across the water.

“What is it, Baptiste? Where are we?” asked Hugh, forgetting in his eagerness that it was not his place to speak.

“It is Thunder Cape,” the Captain replied, overlooking the breach of discipline, “the eastern boundary of Thunder Bay, where the Kaministikwia empties and the New Fort is situated.”

“Truly it must be the Cap au Tonnerre, the Giant that Sleeps,” Baptiste agreed, resting on his oars to study the long shape, like a gigantic figure stretched out at rest upon the water. “The others to the north are the Cape at the Nipigon and the Island of St. Ignace.”

“We are not as far off our course as I feared,” remarked the Captain with satisfaction.

Hugh ventured another question. “What then, sir, is this land where we are?”

Captain Bennett scanned the horizon as far as he could see. “Thunder Cape lies a little to the north of west,” he said thoughtfully. “We are on an island of course, a large one. There is only one island it can be, the Isle Royale. I have seen one end or the other of Royale many times from a distance, when crossing to the Kaministikwia or to the Grand Portage, but I never set foot on the island before.” Again he glanced up at the steep rocks and thick woods on his right, then his eyes sought the heaving blue of the open lake. “This northwest breeze would be almost dead against us, and it is increasing. We’ll not set sail till morning. By that time I think we shall have a change of wind.”

Their purpose accomplished, the oarsmen turned the boat and started back towards camp. Hugh, handling the bow oars, watched the shore close at hand. They were skirting a rock cliff, sheer from the lake, its brown-gray surface stained almost black at the water line, blotched farther up with lichens, black, orange and green-gray, and worn and seamed and rent with vertical cracks from top to bottom. The cracks ran in diagonally, opening up the bay. As Hugh came into clear view of one of the widest of the fissures, he noticed something projecting from it.

“See, Baptiste,” he cried, pointing to the thing, “someone has been here before us.”

The French Canadian rested on his oars and spoke to Captain Bennett. “There is the end of a boat in that hole, M’sieu, no birch canoe either. How came it here in this wilderness?”

“Row nearer,” ordered the shipmaster, “and we’ll have a look at it.”

The two pulled close to the mouth of the fissure. At the Captain’s order, Baptiste stepped over side to a boulder that rose just above the water. From the boulder he sprang like a squirrel. His moccasined feet gripped the rim of the old boat, and he balanced for an instant before jumping down. Hugh, in his heavier boots, followed more clumsily. Captain Bennett remained in the rowboat.

The wrecked craft in which the two found themselves was tightly wedged in the crack. The bow was smashed and splintered and held fast by the ice that had not yet melted in the dark, cold cleft. Indeed