The little Philomel had a hard time getting to the Pribyloff Islands. She was buffeted by head-winds and forced to sail nearly one hundred miles out of her course by a gale. Then she became involved in such mazes of fog and perplexity that ten full days elapsed before she finally entered the region of screaming sea-fowl, and her people knew that the seal islands were at hand. Soon afterwards a lifting fog disclosed the low dark coast-line of St. Paul, which, forbidding as it appeared, gladdened Mr. John Ryder’s eyes as though it had been the fairest scene on earth. Was not his boy there? And would not a few more hours see them reunited? He fondly hoped so, and in spite of his many disappointments could not believe that another was in store for him. No; Phil must be here, of course. It was not likely that he had been offered a chance of getting away, and even if he had he was pretty certain to have waited for the Phoca’s promised return. So it was with a heart full of joyful anticipations that Mr. John Ryder finally landed at the village of St. Paul.

The usual crowd was collected on the beach to witness the arrival, and stepping up to the nearest white man, who happened to be the government inspector, Mr. Ryder handed him a note of introduction from Captain Matthews, saying, at the same time: “These are my credentials, sir; and my excuse for landing here, where I am well aware strangers are not permitted save by authority, is, that I am in search of a lost boy, my son, Philip Ryder by name. I must confess that I am disappointed at not seeing him here, but you can doubtless tell me where to find him.”

A strange silence fell over the little group at these words, which most of them understood; while the inspector turned pale, and the hand, that he held out to Mr. Ryder, trembled.

“This is terrible, sir!” he said, “and I know not how to tell you—”

“What? Has anything happened to my boy? Is he ill? or—or—dead?”

The unhappy father almost choked as he pronounced the last words.

“I hope not, sir! We hope not!” repeated the inspector, in a voice husky with emotion. “All we know is that he is lost, and has been for two weeks past—in fact, both he and his companion disappeared just as the revenue-cutter Phoca, on which they came to the island, left it, and we have been unable to discover a trace of them since, though parties have been out in every direction searching for some clew to the mystery. But come up to my house, gentlemen, and you shall be given all the particulars so far as they are known to us.”

At the word “lost,” Mr. Ryder, strong, self-contained man that he was, had staggered as though struck a heavy blow, and Jalap Coombs, who stood immediately behind him, grasped his arm.

“Don’t ye give up, sir!” he cried, though even his usually hearty tone was a little shaky. “Your boy Phil ain’t the lad to get lost so as he can’t find hisself, nor into a scrape that he won’t work his way out of somehow, not ef I know him, and I think I do. He’s been lost before and found, same as he will be this time. Why, sir, it wouldn’t surprise me one mite to see him turn up to-morrow bright and smiling. As my old friend Kite Roberson uster say, ‘Them that’s lost the oftenest larns best how to take care of theirselves.’”

During the utterance of these homely words of comfort the little party had been walking up the ascent towards the inspector’s house, and now within its friendly walls, that had so recently sheltered his boy, Mr. Ryder learned all that was known concerning Phil and Serge. The former had gone with a party of egg-hunters to Walrus Islet, and so was away when the captain of the Phoca was obliged to depart in search of a poaching sealer of whose operations he had just learned.

“By-the-way, her name was the same as that of the schooner in which you have just come! Could she have been the same?” asked the inspector.

At this the stricken father groaned aloud, while Jalap Coombs answered, “I expect she is, sir, though it was all along of a mistake.”

“Of course it doesn’t matter,” said their host, “only it does seem rather hard. But, to return to my story, your son being away, his friend set out to fetch him, and went over to Walrus with a native, whose place Phil was to take for the return trip. They overtook the egg-hunters just as they were landing, the native was left with them, and the two lads started to return, in spite of the fact that, as night, accompanied by a thick fog, was shutting down, the hunters tried to dissuade them from the attempt.

“Your son shouted back: ‘It’ll be all right—we can’t miss it; and we must take the chances anyway, for we’re bound to get to Sitka!’ That was the last seen or heard of them.

“We did not feel any anxiety here until the egg-hunters returned the following day, for we had not expected that the lads would get back that night; but when the bidarrah came in without them we knew at once that something serious must have happened. By questioning the hunters, I learned that the wind had changed and blown fresh from the southward soon after the boys left them; also that the tide was flooding, with a strong current running north between Walrus and St. Paul. It seemed most likely, therefore, that the lads had been carried so far to the northward as to miss the island entirely, especially as the night was of unusual darkness.

“As soon as I obtained these facts I prepared for sea the little schooner that we use to maintain communication between here and St. George, manned her with a crew of picked men, and sent her out with orders to cruise back and forth to the northward of the islands for a week, in the hope of picking them up. Upon his return the captain of this vessel reported that he had been as far as one hundred miles to the northward, keeping the sharpest kind of a lookout all the time, but without avail.”

“So you do not think there is the slightest chance that we shall ever see them again?” asked Mr. Ryder, in a voice that betrayed his own hopelessness.

“I will not say so,” replied the inspector; “for, of course, there are always chances, and while doubt exists there is also room for hope.”

“Of course there is, sir! a plenty of it and rightly, too!” broke in Jalap Coombs, who had followed the inspector’s narrative with the closest attention. “My friend, old Kite Roberson, uster say that Hope was the thing of all in this world he had the greatest respec’ and admiration for, ’cause ye couldn’t kill it, and every time it got a knock-down it would pop up agin bright and smiling in some onexpected place. So I say, let’s tie to Hope, and not give up those boys yet awhile. This gentleman has kindly give us the dark view of this case, now ’spose we takes a squint at the bright side.”

“Is there a bright side?” asked Mr. Ryder.

“Wal, I should ruther say so! Not sunlight, maybe, but bright enough to steer by. To begin with, a bidarkie is one of the best sea-boats there is long’s ye keep her head to the sea or scudding, and especially if ye have kamleikas aboard. Did the lads have kamleikas, do ye know, sir?”

“Yes,” replied the inspector; “Phil had his own, and Serge borrowed one from the native who owned the bidarkie.”

“And how was they off for grub?”

“I don’t believe they had any, except a few eggs that Phil insisted on taking as specimens for Miss Matthews.”

“Then they couldn’t have been better fixed!” cried the mate. “Eggs is meat and drink, both in one shell. Why, old Kite Roberson, who was one of the likeliest navigators as ever trod a deck, uster consider eggs the main part of a ship’s stores. He knowed every egg island in three oceans, and uster visit ’em regular. Besides that, he carried along sich a stock of fowls that, no matter what ship he sailed in, she was allers called the ‘Hen-coop.’

“So what’s to hender two able young seamen, like Phil and Serge, with a good sea-boat under their feet and a locker full of the best of grub, from making a cruise to some one of the islands lying up here to the nor’ard? Nothing at all, I say. It would be right in the line of sich lads as they be, and I wouldn’t be one mite surprised ef they was setting on some handy pint of rock this very minute, straining their eyes watching for us, and wondering why we didn’t come along.”

“Are there islands to the north of this?” asked Mr. Ryder, with a show of interest.

“To be sure. There’s St. Matthew, and St. Lawrence, and Nunivack, and then up in the very middle of the strait, where the United States and Russia is less’n forty mile apart, is the Stepping Stones, two little islands with the line running between ’em, and so close together that an able-bodied biscuit-tosser, standing on the American island, could toss a biscuit over into Asia. To be sure, they’re nigh on to a thousand miles from here, and there ain’t no show for the boys to have fetched up there, nor yet on St. Lawrence, but it’s jest possible they’ve brung up agin St. Matthew.”

“We’ll go there and see,” exclaimed Mr. Ryder, roused into a new activity by the ray of hope thus skilfully brought to bear on the situation by Jalap Coombs.

“Besides,” continued the mate, “the lads has a chance of being picked up by every one of the vessels cruising in these waters, of which there is a plenty—men-o’-war, whalers, revenoo-cutters, company ships, and the like, to say nothing of seal-poachers and walrus-hunters.”

Thus it was decided that the Philomel should continue her search to the northward, and Mr. Ryder was in a feverish state of anxiety until they were again off. Before starting, he promised the inspector that, however their search might result, they would return to the Pribyloffs and report.

Two weeks later they did so. They had been to St. Matthew, where countless numbers of polar bears may be seen at all seasons, and where an outlying cone of basalt rises sheer a thousand feet from the sea, and like a huge chimney pours forth an unbroken column of black smoke. They had visited the savage walrus-hunters of Nunivack, and they had returned to the place from which they started without having discovered a trace of or heard a word from the missing lads.

Now, with hope wellnigh extinguished in his bosom, though still lingering as a faint spark, John Ryder came ashore to make his last inquiry. If he heard nothing here, hope would indeed be dead. He wondered slightly at the unusual throng gathered on the beach to welcome them. Suddenly his despair, wonder, and all other feelings were merged in an overwhelming joy; for, while they were still some distance off, a clear, ringing voice shouted out:

“We have heard from them, and they are safe!”

“Didn’t I tell ye it would turn out same as old Kite Roberson allers said?” remarked Jalap Coombs, in a tone of quiet exultation.