ere in the dormitory very little of the time except at night,
he was enabled to sleep; and Roswell had hopes, as he now told Stimson,
that a month or six weeks would set the patient on his feet again.

"He has been a fortunate fellow, Stephen, that it was no worse," added
Roswell, on that occasion. "But for the luck which turned the lance-pole
beneath him, every bone he has would have been broken."

"What you call _luck_, Captain Gar'ner, I call _Providence_," was
Stephen's answer. "The good book tells us that not a sparrow shall fall
without the eye of Divine Providence being on it."

Chapter XVIII.

"Now far he sweeps, where scarce a summer smiles,
On Bhering's rocks, or Greenland's naked isles;
Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow,
From wastes that slumber in eternal snow,
And waft across the waves' tumultuous roar,
The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore,"

Campbell.

Roswell Gardiner set about his duties, the succeeding day, with a shade of
deep reflection on his brow. A crisis had, indeed, come in his affairs,
and it behooved him to look well to his proceedings. Daggett's presence on
the island was no longer of any moment to himself or his owner, but there
remained the secret of the Key, and of the buried treasure. Should the two
schooners keep together, how was he to acquit himself in that part of his
duty, without admitting of a partnership, against which he knew that every
fibre in the deacon's system, whether physical or moral, would revolt.
Still, his word was pledged, and he had no choice but to remain, and help
fill up the rival Sea Lion, and trust to his own address in getting rid of
her again, as the two vessels proceeded north.

The chief mate of Daggett's craft, though a good sealer, was an impetuous
and reckless man, and had more than once found fault with the great
precautions used, by the orders of Roswell. Macy, as this officer was
called, was for making a regular onslaught upon the animals, slaying as
many as they could at once, and then take up the business of curing and
trying-out as a regular job. He had seen such things done with success,
and he believed it was the most secure mode of getting along. 'Some of
these fine mornings,' as he expressed it, 'Captain Gar'ner would turn out,
and find that his herd was off--gone to pasture in some other field.' This
was a view of the matter with which Roswell did not at all agree. His
forbearing and cautious po