“S’p’osin’ you give me a spell here’t the wheel, Jack, and let me take a squint on’t. Somehow I feel it in my bones—feel’t there’s something more’n drift in that bunch,” said Tom N., as he was familiarly called over at the Blakely Mills, where he had been getting charters since the first cargo left its port.

“All right, cap’n. You’re the judge, and I’m not objectin’, so long as we don’t have to heave to. It ’u’d be a tarnation pity to spile this beautiful head on—you know we’re already short on time. That whirler was a corker, wan’t she, cap’n?” said the easygoing fellow, as he spattered the deck with fresh tobacco juice and toyed with the wheel, which stood loosely wound at his side.

“Jack,” said the captain, presently, with a feeling of great satisfaction, “there’s something besides ‘still life’ in that heap, if I’m not mightily mistaken. See that school of shark round there?”

“Are y’u sure them’s not dog fish, cap’n?” queried the pretending mate, who was still anxious to make good use of a favourable wind, if not to avoid hauling in the sails.

“Yep; they’re shark, sure enough,” continued the captain, now more certain than ever. “I guess we’ll have to haul to, mate. It won’t do to pass somethin’ in distress—not so long as Tom N. is the poop sheik of a gig sloop. Not on your life, mate! And who knows but one of us’ll be the very next to man a like un’?”

“Well, I s’pose it’s the order, then?” said Jack, gloomily. “I’ll bet, though, it’s nothin’ more’n a ‘Jap,’ even if we do heave to.”

Jack lost no time in putting the men to work, and, as usual, when he went at it in earnest the thing was soon done. The little three-master was brought to, not far distant from the floating drift, which now plainly disclosed the form of a man. The excitement began to grow intense, and Jack’s ponderous voice could have been heard for miles around as he and two trustys jumped into the lifeboat and yelled:

“Swing to the davits and let go your blocks!” Thereafter no time was lost in getting the shipwrecked man on board, and in applying the necessary restoratives; though it was some time before Shibusawa fully recovered consciousness, and when he did so they were again under full sail for Port Blakely, Washington.