that they also were foreigners, speaking
a language unintelligible to him, though evidently comprehended by two
of his men.

Captain Spillins explained that, uninviting as the place looked, it
was one of the very few harbors on that rugged coast in which the logs
of which Peveril was in search could be rafted and held in safety
until called for. So the stores and supplies were landed, and, after
the tug had steamed away, Peveril set his men at work building a camp
and collecting firewood, while he took the skiff for an exploration of
the adjacent coast.

On the south side of Laughing Fish Cove he found logs bearing the
letters "W. P." strewn for miles along the shore, and piled in every
conceivable position among the rocks, on which they had been hurled by
furious seas. As he studied the situation, our young wreck-master
foresaw an immense amount of labor in dislodging these and getting
them once more afloat. Besides those on the rocks he discovered a
number on the beach of the cove that could easily be got into the
water. But all that he thus saw formed only about one-half of what had
been contained in the great raft.

The remainder must, then, be found somewhere to the northward of
Laughing Fish, and, accordingly, late in the afternoon he headed his
skiff in that direction. The coast that he now skirted was very wild
but grandly beautiful, with precipitous cliffs brilliant in the reds
and greens of mineral stains, and surmounted by a dense growth of
sharp-pointed firs, among which were set groups of white birches. At
the base of the cliffs, and amid the detached masses fallen from them,
the crystal-blue waters plashed softly, and an occasional wood-duck
in iridescent plumage swam hurriedly from his course with anxious
backward glances. In the upper air, nesting gulls in spotless white
darted to and fro, noting his movements with keen, red eyes.

He found some logs near the cove; but the farther he went from it the
scarcer they became, until finally he passed a mile or more of coast
without seeing one.

"Strange!" muttered the young man. "What can have become of them?
There are hundreds still missing, and they should be somewhere in this
vicinity."

He was paddling almost without a sound, and skirting a ledge of black
rocks that jutted well out into the lake, as he spoke. At that same
moment something impelled him to glance upward and encounter a vision
startling in its unexpectedness.

On the very face of th