as nice as this cabin I shall feel quite at home."

The cabin opposite the Captain's had been the mate's, and behind it was
the mess cabin. Here the greater part of crockery and glass was
shattered on the floor. An overturned bird-cage with a dead canary in
it lay under the table.

"Well," said Dan, "we ought to be comfortable. Now, Miss Howland, I
think you ought to go to your cabin and get off those damp skirts. I
have got to take a look at the cargo, see what plans I can make to
render us something else than a log on the sea, and nose about in the
galley." He started. "By George! I had forgotten about food. That's
rather important." He hastily left the cabin and started down the
corridor, with the girl's warning not to be long following him.

First he stopped in the carpenter's room and secured the very thing he
was looking for,--an axe. With this he broke down the door of the
storeroom, which, as he had expected, was locked. There were a barrel
of flour, tins of beef and of soups and vegetables, condensed milk, and
a number of preserve jars filled with coffee.

Taking one of the jars in which he saw the coffee was ground he poured
out a cupful and drew some water from a cask. Then going into the
galley, he dug up a coffee-pot from the mass of cooking utensils which
covered the floor, and proceeded to light a fire in the range. It was
soon roaring, and Dan had just mixed the coffee and water when Virginia
appeared at the door.

For an instant Dan hardly recognized the girl in her trim blue skirt,
white sailor waist, open at the throat, and a red leather belt with a
great brass buckle.

"You have done well," he said at length. "I had no idea you would be
so fortunate."

"Yes, everything fits pretty well," laughed the girl, "except that the
skirt is a trifle short, but of course that doesn't matter here.
That's not the point, though." She gazed at him sternly. "Who gave
you permission to come in here and cook?"

As Dan looked at her in amazement she continued:

"Now see here, Captain Merrithew, we might just as well face our
situation. This is no time for observance of the minor conventions or
gallantry. We are shipwrecked. We are nothing more nor less than two
human beings cast away on a derelict. You are to regard me, not as
Virginia Howland, helpless, dependent, to be waited upon and watched
over, but as you would Ralph Oddington or any one else were he in my
place--as an assistant in