it the nail on the head. They
wanted to drive us away, and they didn't want their own boat in the way
to-night."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Frank.

"I'm not very clear in my mind as to what I did mean," laughed Ned.
"However, it is plain that the steamer did not relish staying about
here."

Ned watched the supper preparations for a short time and then walked
away toward the interior. The island was a very small one, and consisted
chiefly of a round rim of white sand--which was rock pounded up by the
beating of the waves--and a rocky, cone-like elevation which lifted
above the waters of the China Sea like a signal tower.

In some distant epoch the bit of rock had been cast up from the bottom
of the ocean, and the rains and suns of countless years had formed from
the volcanic material the thin soil which here and there supported
tropical growths.

Sailors called the island "Elephant's Head," because the central
elevation was said to resemble in some remote degree the head of an
elephant, and because two great ridges of rock jutted out into the
water, pointing toward the coast of China. These ridges formed an
excellent harbor, and were known as "The Tusks."

The _Manhattan_ was not anchored in this secure harbor, but in a bay
which was formed by a break in the rock just around the south corner of
the island. There were springs high up on the mountain, and these formed
the river which had in turn worn away the rock and shaped the bay.

Ned reached the place where the climb began in five minutes after
leaving the campfire. There was no jungle to speak of and he walked
rapidly. He passed on up the steep side of the mountain for some
distance and then paused on a little shelf of rock which faced the west
and took out his glass.

Before him lay the quiet waters of the great China Sea, while back of
him loomed the rugged bulk of the mountain, the summit indistinct in the
darkness of the moonless night. The growths of the tropics came up to
where he stood and then died out from lack of soil. Elephant's Head
stood out boldly, its rugged lines unsoftened by the growths which
flourish almost everywhere in the Philippines.

Below, Ned could see the red of the campfire, sheltered from the sea
side by a screen of bushes. Away to the west he could see, at first,
nothing, and then a light came dancing over the waves. At first he
thought he must be mistaken, but the light remained stationery except
that it seemed to ro