"Tom, is it you? Are you all right?"
There was a ring in Mr. Dacre's tone that showed how he had suffered since the strange disappearance of his nephews and their chum.
"We never were better in our lives," cried Tom, deftly catching a rope that came snaking down as the steamer's speed diminished. "But how in the world did you come to run across us? Talk about a needle in a haystack!"
"Never mind the details now, my boy. Come on board at once. I can hardly wait till I see you."
Not many minutes later, in the comfortable cabin of the Northerner, Tom, Jack and Sandy, ragged and begrimed, were telling, between intervals of eating and drinking, the tale of their strange adventures since they were lost in the fog. When they had concluded the tale, Tom inquired of his uncle how it was that he had so miraculously found them.
"If you hadn't almost run us down we'd never have seen you," Tom continued, "for I was too sleepy to keep my eyes open."
Mr. Dacre's story was soon told. The two Aleuts who had apparently deserted the boys had really come back from the village with food. They were terrified when they found the boys and the dory gone, for they knew that it was time for the daily tide-bore to sweep through the straits. Getting a native canoe, they made their way to Kadiak, sought out Mr. Dacre and told him what had happened. The Northerner was at once put in commission for the hunt, although Mr. Dacre confessed that he had had a dreadful fear, not unshared by Mr. Chillingworth and the captain, that the boys had been caught in the tidal bore and lost.
From the captain's knowledge of the coast, they had been able to make a fairly intelligent search. Just before the brief darkness closed in that night they had made out a column of smoke rising on the horizon, and more as a forlorn hope than anything else, had made toward it, hoping against hope that it had been kindled by the young castaways.
"And so it was," laughed Tom happily, his hand finding his uncle's. "After all, maybe those bears were a blessing in disguise. If it hadn't been for them, we wouldn't have lighted that fire, and if it hadn't been for the fire, you'd like as not never have found us."