, expecting
to be back in a month. It was eight years later when he returned.

His adventures during those eight years can only be summarized. The
fishing schooner was cut down by a big ship out of Halifax bound around
the Horn; and Quinbey alone of her crew succeeded in springing to her
martingale-stay as the smaller craft went under. No one else was saved,
though the ship hove to and put out boats to search. Then the ship went
on, and, as she met no inbound craft, Quinbey was forced to go with
her.

But she did not round Cape Horn. A strong current threw her onto the
Patagonian coast near Cape Virgins in a dead calm, and a sudden gale of
wind and heavy sea ground her to pieces.

Only John Quinbey was a swimmer of sufficient strength to reach the
beach, and here he lay, half dead, for a day, when he arose and struck
inland, knowing that Punta Arenas was about a hundred and fifty miles
along the coast of the Magellan Strait, and hoping to reach it.

He did not at once. The giant savages of this region caught him and
made him one of them, preventing his escape. He was accustomed to
hardship, and lived their life, tormented only by the thought that the
money at home was deposited in his name, and that he had made no
provision whereby the foolish little wife could draw from the bank.

But he still hoped to escape; and, as the tribe drifted inland, he was
allowed more liberty. He never abused it, waiting for a final dash,
always returning from a jaunt in reasonable time, and earning the
confidence of his captors.

When over seven years had passed, he found, in the foothills of the
Latorre Mountains, a large, heavy lump of dark metal, which he scraped
with his knife and recognized as gold. It was fully the size of a draw
bucket, but of what value he could not determine, except that it
represented a fortune.

Strong man though he was, he could not carry it a hundred yards without
resting, yet he carried it, not back to the tribe, but in a
southwesterly direction, toward Punta Arenas. When forced to return, he
hid it, taking careful bearings, and rejoined his masters. He waited a
few days before the next trip, then moved it a few miles farther on.

In this way, exciting no suspicion, he shifted his find, step by step,
until he had it on a well-defined trail that could lead nowhere but to
the lonely port he was making for. Then, after a few days' rest, he
packed a bundle of dried meat, took with him a native-made rope