“Very well,” answered the officer. “Follow me, you two, and I guess the captain will dispose of your case in short order.”
Thus saying he led the way aft to the captain’s cabin, which was at the same time the office in which he transacted his business. Knocking at the door, the officer was bidden to enter, and, ordering the lads to remain where they were, he did so. A minute later he reappeared, told them they might step inside, as the captain was ready to hear their story, and then returned to his post of duty on the upper deck.
As Phil and Serge stepped inside the roomy, well-appointed cabin, the former thought he had never seen a more comfortable, home-like appearing place. It contained a centre-table on which stood a pot of ferns, a number of easy-chairs, a writing-desk, and a cabinet organ. At one end was a small library of carefully selected books, and on a low sofa seat, at one side, were scattered a number of magazines and illustrated papers.
The most startling object in the room to Phil, however, was a large mirror that confronted him as he entered the door, and in which, for the first time in weeks, he saw his own reflection. He had forgotten that he still wore the kamleika of a sea-otter hunter, that he was hatless, that his feet and lower limbs were incased in great cowhide boots, or that his hair was long and uncombed. Now to his dismay he realized that in general appearance he more nearly resembled a native Aleut than he did a civilized white lad, not to say a young gentleman. In his confusion he hardly realized that the captain of the cutter was speaking to them, and that Serge, who, for the moment was the more self-possessed of the two, was answering him. Suddenly he was recalled to his senses by hearing an exclamation of:
“Bless my soul! not Serge Belcofsky of Sitka! Of course it is, though. Why, Serge, you young scamp, how are you? and how, in the name of all that is mysterious, do I find you here masquerading as a seal-poacher? I saw your mother only a few days ago, and she is terribly anxious about you. Why aren’t you in Sitka?”
To Phil’s amazement, as Captain Matthews, who was a tall, fine-looking man with gray side whiskers, uttered these words he stepped forward, and, grasping the hand of his companion, shook it heartily.
“I am trying to get to Sitka, sir, the best I know how,” answered Serge, laughing, as he shook hands with this old acquaintance, “and so is my friend here, Mr. Ryder, whose father is waiting for him there; but somehow luck seems to be against us.”
“Ryder! Ryder!” repeated Captain Matthews, turning to Phil with a puzzled expression. “It can’t be that you are the son of Mr. John Ryder, the famous mining expert whom I heard of in Sitka, and who is hunting all over the country for a lost boy?”
“I believe I am, sir,” replied Phil, “for my name is Philip Ryder, and I seem to be very much lost, and my father is Mr. John Ryder, a mining expert.”
“Well, bless my soul!” cried the captain. “If this isn’t a most extraordinary state of affairs! And so you two young scamps are the very Ryder and Belcofsky whose names appear on the Seamew’s shipping-papers, and whom I wasted so much time hunting for. But where is Coombs—Quinine Coombs, or whatever his medicinal name is?”