“Why do you tell me, Wilson? Mr. Chanler is the owner.”
“Yes sir.” He hesitated a moment, then added: “You are near to the owner. You’ll tell him if you see fit.”
XIII
Chanler was in fine fettle that morning. He arose early, snatched a cup of coffee for breakfast and came out to pace the deck, frequently turning his glasses on the horizon over the yacht’s stern.
“Greetings and salutations, Gardy!” he exclaimed as we met. “Down with the long face, up with the merry-merry! Hang it, Gardy, get enthused. Can’t you see I’m actually not bored this morning?”
Captain Brack soon appeared with a detailed account of the new man’s adventures. The man had been one of the crew of a sealing schooner which had been blown far off its course and lost the Autumn before with all hands, save our man and one companion.
Clinging to an upturned boat they had been driven ashore in an inlet which appeared on no map of Alaska to that date, a region so secluded that the man called it the “Hidden Country.” The pair had wintered precariously. With the beginning of the Spring break-up they had discovered that in the upper reaches of a river running into the inlet they had but to turn up the sand and find gold in quantities unheard of.
Rendered desperate by lack of food, they had set forth in their open boat in hope of somehow striking the first steamers going North. The man’s companion had died of hardships two days before. They had called the inlet Kalmut Fiord, after the wrecked sealer; it was so well hidden behind an island that a thousand boats might sail past and never guess of its existence, never know there was a hidden country there in which nature had hoarded a great amount of the stuff men prize above all other things material.
“By Jove!” cried Chanler, as Brack finished. “Sounds like a book, doesn’t it? Have the beggar up, cappy, and let’s have a look at him; let’s see the gold and hear his story.”
We were sitting on the long settee in the stern at the time. A couple of hands were working near by, polishing brass work.