icebergs. And their fair sailing abruptly terminated.

It began in the space of a watch. The glass tumbled, the wind hauled
around to foul, and it began to blow viciously. For days they rode
hove to.

That was but the beginning. For weeks, they obtained only an
occasional favorable slant of wind, and these, as often as not, in the
shape of short, sharp gales. They made the most of them; the blind man
on the poop coached cannily, and Ruth and the boatswain carried on to
the limit.

Martin, once again, as in the days leaving San Francisco, saw the
smother of canvas fill the decks with water. But such sailing was
rare, and of short duration. Always, succeeding, came the heavy slap
in the face from the fierce wind god of the North.

Martin labored mightily, in company with his fellows, it being a
constant round of "reef, shake out, and come about." The days were
sharp, and the nights bitter cold--though, as they won northward, and
the season advanced, the days grew steadily longer.

Went glimmering, as the weeks passed, the high hopes of a record
passage. Disappeared, also, the assurance of recovering the treasure.
The shadow of Wild Bob Carew fell between them and their destination.

When one day the capricious wind drove them fairly past Copper Island,
and they plunged into the foggy, ill-charted reaches of the Bering,
their jubilation was tempered with a note of pessimism. They debated,
in the _Cohasset's_ cabin, whether the adventurer of the _Dawn_ had
been beforehand; and Captain Dabney discussed his plans for proceeding
on to the Kamchatka coast for trading in case they discovered Fire
Mountain to be despoiled.

The situation, it seemed to Martin, resolved itself to this: If Carew
knew the latitude and longitude of the smoking mountain--and being
familiar with the Bering Sea, all hands admitted that he might well
know it--the ambergris was most certainly lost to them, unless, as was
most unlikely, the _Dawn_ had had even worse luck with the weather than
the _Cohasset_. But if Carew did not know Fire Mountain's location,
they had a chance, though Carew was probably cruising adjacent waters,
on the lookout for them--and if they encountered him, they might
prepare to resist a piracy.

Martin, in truth, had a secret hope that they might encounter Carew's
schooner. He had a healthy lust for trouble and a scorn bred of
ignorance for the Japanese crew of the _Dawn_. He harbored a grudge
against the _Da