ible
recklessness of men drunk on the pale liquor of that land--men who,
sailing along the dangerous coast, lash the wheels of their vessels,
and leaving all sail set, go below for a day's carousal; men who drain
the very liquid from the compass to satisfy their burning thirst when
hootch is gone. So it was no surprise to the women to learn that the
storm which swept the Island so soon after the departure of the three
men, had broken upon the _Silver Fox_ when all hands, except the
faithful Swimming Wolf, were too far gone in drink to man the craft.

As he talked, the Indian, with expressive eyes and hands, acted out
each step of his story. He told how the wind increased; how he lashed
the wheel and all alone tried to reef the bellying canvass, letting it
fall as it would at last. With a few words and many dramatic gestures,
he made known how the trader, roused from a two-day stupor by the
pitching of the vessel and the banging of the boom sticks, had
staggered up out of the cabin, and been struck by the heavily swinging
boom of the mainsail.

The captain and the three sailors crawled to the deck soon after, where
the freshness of the rising gale undoubtedly cleared their brains
somewhat. They tried to make things ship-shape to weather the storm.
The captain was just about to cut the tow-line that still bound the
trader's whaleboat to the stern of the _Silver Fox_, when suddenly
volumes of black smoke came pouring out of the cabin.

Swimming Wolf was never able to give a white man's reason which would
explain the fire that started in the hold of the schooner where the
gasoline was stored. He swore it was the _kus-ta-ka_ who kindled the
flame, the _kus-ta-ka_ who knocked the White Chief on the head and made
him fall "all same dead." That he finally got the trader into the
whaleboat and escaped the burning vessel while the crew departed in
their own small boat was evident. There was but one oar, and the craft
was blown hither and thither on the tossing sea at the wind's will. In
the dawn of the third day Swimming Wolf had been able to beach it on
the rocky shore off which he found himself.

The Indian had no idea where he was landing, and when he saw the
white-robed figures appear on the rickety porch of the cabin, it was
not surprising that he thought them ghosts.

Further questioning of Swimming Wolf revealed the fact that at
Katleean, two drunken sailors had run the _Hoonah_ ashore in the lagoon
on one of