them, so they
took me into the tribe, and always managed to procure me such food as I
could eat. They gave me roots and dried meat when they themselves were
living on putrid blubber, or worse, because they kill all the old women
as soon as famine threatens. The women are devoured long before the
dogs; dogs catch otters, but old women cannot. In winter, when a long
storm renders it impossible to obtain shell-fish, any woman who is
feeble will steal off and hide in the mountains. But the men track her
and bring her back. They hold her over the smoke of a fire until she
is choked. Ah! God in heaven! I have seen such sights during those
five years!"

Elsie, of course, understood all of this. When Christobal put it into
literal English, Courtenay looked at her. She smiled at his unspoken
thought.

"I am already aware of most of what he is telling us," she said. "It
is very dreadful that such people should exist, but one does not fall
in a faint merely because they cumber the earth. Perhaps you will not
send me away next time, if they try to board the ship again. I can use
a revolver quite well enough to count as one for the defense."

"You are henceforth enrolled as maid-at-arms, Miss Maxwell," said the
captain, lightly. He was by no means surprised at the coolness she
displayed in the face of the new terror. She had given so many proofs
of her natural courage that it must be equal to even so affrighting a
test as the near presence of the Alaculof Indians. But he broke in on
the Spaniard's recital with a question of direct interest.

"Ask him, Christobal, why he said those devils would come again by
daylight."

"Because they have guns, and can use them," was the appalling answer
given by Suarez. "They secured the rifles belonging to my party, and
one of them, who had often seen ship's officers shooting wild geese,
understood the method of loading and aiming. They will not waste the
cartridges on game, but keep them for tribal warfare, and they think a
gun cannot shoot in the dark. To-night they only attempted a surprise,
and made off the moment they were discovered. To-morrow, or next day,
they will swarm round the ship in hundreds, and fire at us with rifles,
bows, and slings. They do most harm with the slings and arrows, as
they hold the gun away from the shoulder, but they can cast a heavy
pebble from a sling quite as far and almost as straight as a revolver
can shoot."

"How do they know the