CHAPTER XVIII.
AFTER THE STORM.
"Sure she's deserted, are you?" asked the cautious Teddy, as he followed the other members of the little party aboard, the old Cree Indian guide bringing up the rear.
"Not a sign of any living thing here," came the answer, as Ned peered about.
"Sometimes, I understand, that you can run across all sorts of horrible sights on one of these same wrecks," continued Teddy. "Sailors get drowned, you know, down in the hold or in the forecastle. I hope we don't discover anything like that now. I never did fancy sights as ghastly as that."
"And I don't think you need bother your head about it," Ned told him, "because, in the first place, this wreck has been here quite some time; and, then again, you can see that wreckers have been aboard and stripped nearly all the iron and brass and copper out, because it was valuable. Perhaps there may be some Esquimaux living along the shore of Hudson Bay; or else it was the men up at the mine who did it. What we want to do is to find out what state the cabin happens to be in. A dry roof would be about the best we could ask to-day."
They made a rush toward the stairs that led down, which in most vessels would be known as the companionway. A shout went up as they looked into the cabin. It was almost destitute of anything that might serve as a comfort, but a broken stove gave promise of a fire, with all the delight that this carried in its train.
"We bunk here, all right," said Frank, as soon as he had sighted that stove; it was really a sorry object, but then everything depends on the conditions surrounding one when rendering judgment—at home, they would have never given such a dilapidated thing house room; but shipwrecked mariners are not likely to be critical, and that broken stove was still capable of carrying fire.