t Ruth ever happen to come out here?" inquired Phil.

"Came out to nurse your father while his leg was mending, and
incidentally to find out what had become of an undutiful nephew whom she
seems to fancy has an aptitude for getting into scrapes," laughed the
Captain.

"Has my father recovered from his accident?"

"So entirely that he fancies his leg is sounder and better than ever it
was."

"And are you bound for Sitka now, sir?"

"Certainly I am, and should have been half-way there by this time if I
hadn't been delayed by a report of some sort of a row between the
Chilkats and a party of whites. Now, having settled that difficulty by
capturing the entire force of aggressors, I propose to carry them to
Sitka as legitimate prisoners, and then turn them over to the
authorities. So, gentlemen, you will please consider yourselves as
prisoners of war, and under orders not to leave this ship until she
arrives at Sitka."

"With pleasure, sir," laughed Phil. "Only don't you think you'd better
place us under guard?"

"I expect it will be best," replied the Captain, gravely, "seeing that
you are charged with seal-poaching, piracy, defying government officers,
and escaping from arrest, as well as the present one of making war on
native Americans."

CHAPTER XL.

IN SITKA TOWN.

The long-beaked and wonderfully carved Chilkat canoe was taken on the
_Phoca_'s deck, the anchor was weighed, and, with the trim cutter headed
southward, the last stage of the adventurous journey, pursued amid such
strange vicissitudes, was begun. As the ship sped swiftly past the
overhanging ice-fields of Davidson Glacier, out of Chilkat Inlet into
the broad mountain-walled waters of Lynn Canal, and down that
thoroughfare into Chatham Strait, Captain Matthews listened with
absorbed interest to Phil's account of the remarkable adventures that he
and Serge had encountered from the time he had last seen them at the
Pribyloff islands down to the present moment.

"Well," said he, when the recital was finished, "I've done a good bit of
knocking about in queer places during thirty years of going to sea, and
had some experiences, but my life has been tame and monotonous compared
with the one you have led for the past year. Why, lad, if an account of
what you have gone through in attempting to take a quiet little trip
from New London to Sitka was written out and printed in a book, people
wouldn't believe it was true. They'd shake their heads and say