Part 21 (1/2)

The stranger stood still, looking about him, and Wyllard's lips set tight. A thrill of apprehension ran through Agatha, for she felt that she knew what this stranger's errand must be.

Wyllard rose and walked towards the man with outstretched hand.

”Sit right down and have some supper. You'll want it if you have ridden in from the railroad,” he said. ”We'll talk afterwards.”

The stranger nodded. ”I'm from Vancouver,” he announced, ”had quite a lot of trouble tracing you.”

He sat down, and Wyllard, who sent a man out to take the newcomer's horse, went back to his seat, but he was very quiet during the remainder of the meal. When supper was finished he asked Mrs. Hastings to excuse him, and leading the stranger into a smaller room, pulled out two chairs and laid a cigar on the table.

”Now you can get ahead,” he said laconically.

The seaman fumbled in his pocket, and taking out a slip of wood handed it to his companion.

”That's what I came to bring you,” he remarked.

Wyllard's eyes grew grave as he gazed at the thing. It was a slip of willow which grows close up to the limits of eternal ice, and it bore a rude representation of the British ensign union down, which signifies ”In distress.” Besides this there were one or two indecipherable words scratched on it, and three common names rather more clearly cut. Wyllard recognized every one of them.

”How did you get it?” he asked, in tense suspense.

The seaman once more felt in his pocket and took out a piece of paper cut from a chart. He flattened the paper out on the table, and it showed, as Wyllard had expected, a strip of the Kamtchatkan coast.

”I guess I needn't tell you where that is,” the seaman said, as he pointed to the parallel of lat.i.tude that ran across it. ”Dunton gave it to me. He was up there late last season well over on the western side. A northeasterly gale fell on them, and took most of the foremast out of their s.h.i.+p. I understand they tried to lash on a boom or something as a jury mast, but it hadn't height enough to set much forward canvas, and that being the case she wouldn't bear more than a three-reefed mainsail.

Anyway, they couldn't do anything with her on the wind, and as it kept heading them from the east she sidled away down south through the Kuriles into the Yellow Sea. They got ice-bound somewhere, which explains why Dunton fetched Vancouver only a week ago.”

”But the message?”

”When they were in the thick of their troubles they hove to not far off the icy beach, and a Husky came down on them in some kind of boat.”

”A Husky?” repeated Wyllard, who knew the seaman meant an Esquimau.

”That's what Dunton called him, but I guess he must have been a Kamtchadale or a Koriak. Anyway, he brought this strip of willow, and he had Tom Lewson's watch. Dunton traded him something for it. They couldn't make much of what he said except that he'd got the message from three white men somewhere along the beach. They couldn't make out how long ago.”

”Dunton tried for them?”

”How could he? His vessel would hardly look at the wind, and the ice was piling up on the coast close to lee of him. He hung on a week or two with the floes driving in all the while, and then it freshened hard and blew him out.”

The stranger had told his story, and Wyllard, who rose with a quick gesture of deep anxiety, stood leaning on his chairback. His face was grave.

”That,” he said, ”must have been eight or nine months ago.”

”It was. They've been up there since the night we couldn't pick up the boat.”

”It's unthinkable,” declared Wyllard. ”The thing can't be true.”

The seaman gravely produced a little common metal watch made in Connecticut, and worth five or six dollars. Opening it, he pointed to a name scratched inside it.

”You can't get over that,” he said simply.

Wyllard strode up and down the room. When he sat down again with a clenched hand laid upon the table he and the seaman looked at each other steadily for a moment or two. Then the stranger made a significant gesture.