"You mean a coward?"
"Oui, oui. Cowhard. I am one cowhard for ze jail."
"Oh!" cried Peveril, suddenly enlightened. "Your friends of the schooner are smugglers."
"Oui, zat it. Smoogler, an' bimeby, some time, maybe, soldat catch it. Take all ze mun, put it in jail. Bim! No good!"
"That is the first time I ever heard of any smugglers on this coast," remarked Peveril, reflectively. "I wonder if they can have taken our logs?"
"Log, no," replied Joe, contemptuously. "Canada, he gat plenty log—too plenty. Tradair tak' ze drapeau, ze viskey, ze tick-tick, but not ze log."
Here the conversation was ended by the arrival at the scene of labor, and the work of dislodging stranded logs was begun. All day long they toiled at the difficult task, straining, lifting, stumbling, rolling, and slipping on the wet rocks, receiving many a bump and bruise, pausing only for a bite of lunch and a whiff of pipe-smoke at noon, and finally returning to Laughing Fish at dusk, slowly towing into the cove a small raft of the recovered wreckage.
For several days longer, sometimes in clear weather, but often in cheerless rain and fog, was the task of collecting such logs as had stranded on the south side of the cove continued. At length the last one was gathered from that direction, and our wreckers were ready to explore the coast lying to the northward.
Not since the day of his coming had Peveril found leisure to revisit the place where he had seen the mysterious figure of the cliffs. He had thought often of her, and had so longed to return to that part of the coast that only a strict sense of duty had prevented him. Now that he was free to unravel the mystery if he could, he was as excited as a boy off for a holiday.
He purposed gathering the few logs already seen on that side of the cove, and then to continue his exploration indefinitely in search of others; but, to his amazement, as they skirted the rugged coast, not a log was to be found. In vain did the young leader stand up in his boat, the better to scan every inch of the shore. In vain did he land on the rocks and scramble over their broken surface. There were no logs, and yet he knew they had been there five days earlier. Nor had there been any storm during that time to dislodge them.