y'd all lost people on the _Miwaka_!" he said. "All who could tell
me where their people were lost; a few were like Jo Papo we saw
yesterday, who knew only the year his father was lost; but the time
always was the time that the _Miwaka_ disappeared!"

"Disappeared!" she repeated. Her veins were pricking cold. What did
he know, what could any one know of the _Miwaka_, the ship of which
nothing ever was heard except the beating of the Indian Drum? She
tried to make him say more; but he looked away now down to the lake.

"The _Chippewa_ must have come in early this morning," he said. "She's
lying in the harbor; I saw her on my way to the telegraph office. If
Mr. Spearman has come back with her, tell him I'm sorry I can't wait to
see him."

"When are you going?"

"Now."

She offered to drive him to Petoskey, but he already had arranged for a
man to take him to the train.

She went to her room after he was gone and spread out again on her bed
the watch--now the watch of Captain Stafford of the _Miwaka_--with the
knife and coins of more than twenty years ago which came with it. The
meaning of them now was all changed; she felt that; but what the new
meaning might be could not yet come to her. Something of it had come
to Alan; that, undoubtedly, was what had so greatly stirred him; but
she could not yet reassemble her ideas. Yet a few facts had become
plain.

A maid came to say that Mr. Spearman had come up from his boat for
breakfast with her and was downstairs. She went down to find Henry
lounging in one of the great wicker chairs in the living room. He
arose and came toward her quickly; but she halted before he could seize
her.

"I got back, Connie--"

"Yes; I heard you did."

"What's wrong, dear?"

"Alan Conrad has been here, Henry."

"He has? How was that?"

She told him while he watched her intently. "He wired to Buffalo about
the watch. He got a reply which he brought to me half an hour ago."

"Yes?"

"The watch belonged to Captain Stafford who was lost with the _Miwaka_,
Henry."

He made no reply; but waited.

"You may not have known that it was his; I mean, you may not have known
that it was he who rescued the people of the _Winnebago_, but you must
have known that Uncle Benny didn't."

"Yes; I knew that, Connie," he answered evenly.

"Then why did you let me think the watch was his and that he must
be--dead?"

"That's all's the matter? You had thought he was dead. I believ