to
regret that it had come to them. One morning, some weeks after their
arrival in the basin, to which they had given the name of "Locked
Harbour," Cabot, going on deck for a breath of air, made a discovery so
startling that, for a moment, he could hardly credit the evidence of
his eyes. Then he shouted to White:

"Come up here quick, old man, and take in the sight."

As the latter, who had been lighting a fire in the galley stove, obeyed
this call, Cabot pointed to the beach, on which stood a row of human
figures, gazing at the schooner as stolidly as so many graven images.

"Indians!" cried White, "and perhaps we can get them to show us the way
to the nearest mission."

"Good enough!" rejoined Cabot in high excitement. "Let's go ashore and
interview them before they have a chance to disappear as mysteriously
as they have appeared. Where do you suppose they came from?"

"Can't imagine, and doubt if they'll ever tell. Probably they are
wondering the same thing about us. I suppose, though, they are on
their way towards the interior for the winter. But hold on a minute.
We must take them some sort of a present. Grub is what they'll be most
likely to appreciate, for the natives of this country are always
hungry."

Acting upon his own suggestion, White dived below, to reappear a minute
later with a bag of biscuit and a generous piece of salt pork, which he
tossed into the dinghy. Then the excited lads pulled for the beach on
which the strangers still waited in motionless expectation.

"Only a woman, a baby, and three children," remarked White, in a tone
of disappointment, as they approached near enough to scrutinise the
group. "Still, I suppose they can guide us out of here as well as any
one else if they only will."

The strangers were as White had discovered--a woman and children, but
one of these latter was a half-grown boy of such villainous appearance
that Cabot promptly named him "Arsenic," because his looks were enough
to poison anything. They were clad in rags, and were so miserably thin
that they had evidently been on short rations for a long time. White's
belief that they were hungry was borne out by the ravenous manner with
which they fell upon the provisions he presented to them.

Arsenic seized the piece of pork and whipping out a knife cut it into
strips, which he, his mother, and his sisters devoured raw, as though
it were a delicacy to which they had long been strangers. The hard
bisc