"You surely understand the reason why it grows warmer as we approach the equator, and colder as we go from it, whether we go north or south?"
Stimson assented; though had the truth been said, he would have been obliged to confess that he knew no more than the facts.
"All sailors know sich things, Captain Gar'ner; though they know it with very different degrees of exper'ence. But few get as far south as I have been, to pass a winter. A good pot of hot coffee of a morning will go as far as a second pee-jacket, if a man has to go out into the open air when the weather is at the hardest."
"Luckily, our small stores are quite abundant, and we are better off for coffee and sugar than for anything else. I laid in of both liberally when we were at Rio."
"Yes, Rio is a good place for the articles. But coffee must be hot to do a fellow much good in one of these high-latitude winters; and to be hot there must be fuel to heat it."
"I am afraid the wood will not hold out much more than half the time we shall be here. Fortunately, we had a large supply; but the other schooner was by no means as well furnished with fuel as she ought to have been for such a voyage."
"Well, sir, I suppose you know what must be done next in such a case. Without warm food, men can no more live through one of these winters, than they can live without food at all. If the Vineyard craft has no proper fuel aboard her, we must make fuel of her."
Roswell regarded Stephen with fixed attention for some time. The idea was presented to his mind for the second time, and he greatly liked it.
"That might do," he said; "though it will not be an easy matter to make Captain Daggett consent to such a thing."
"Let him go two or three mornings without his warm meal and hot coffee," answered Stimson, shaking his head, "and he will be glad enough to come into the scheme. A man soon gets willing to set fire to anything that will burn in such a climate. A notion has been floating about in my mind, Captain Gar'ner, that I've several times thought I would mention to you. D'ye think, sir, any benefit could be made of that volcano over the bay, should the worst get to the worst with us?"