made for, and we slipped into
it with the Russian about three mile astern of us. We were safe enough
then, though he entered after us. We played a game of 'catch me,
Susie,' for three days. It was funny. We had enough wind to drive us
at about four knots; the fog was so thick you couldn't see half a
cable-length in any direction; and the bank seemed of limitless width.

"We could hear the gunboat's screw miles away, but he couldn't hear
us--though we'd give him a blat out of our patent fog-horn every now
and then, just to let him know we were still around. Three days he
rampaged around, looking for us, and then he gave us up for a bad job.
The second morning after, we slipped out of the western rim of the bank
and found ourselves in sunshine, and almost on top of as wicked a
looking saw-tooth reef as I ever want to see.

"The reef encircled a mountain that stuck straight up out of the sea
for about two thousand feet. It was an old volcano--still smoking. We
sailed around it, and on the south side discovered a break in the reef,
a little bay bitten narrowly into the mountain, and a beach.

"Well, volcanic islands are common in Bering Sea. But we were
interested in this one, both because of its strange appearance, and
because it was unmarked on the chart. That last was not so unusual,
though. The charts of that section of Bering are mostly guesswork.

"We got a boat over the side, and Little Billy and I were pulled
ashore, while Ruth kept the brig standing by. I wanted to make a
closer inspection of the place, and the landing seemed good.

"The break in the reef was quite wide, and we sounded and found a
channel, and good holding ground inside. We landed on a shell and
black-sand beach, about forty yards wide at high water, and a couple of
hundred long.

"The mountain stuck up sheer in front of us and on either side of the
bay. It was full of caves--riddled like a sponge. A strange place!
The mountain sides were overlaid for an unknown depth with black lava,
from ancient eruptions; and this lava had hardened and twisted into all
manner of shapes, all the way to the still smoking crater. That is
what formed the caves--and formed also, tremendous columns, and
castles, and animals' heads.

"On the level with the little beach were several cave openings. One
was a jutting rock that looked just like an elephant's head carved out
of the black lava, and beneath the outflung trunk, was a black opening
leadi