During the utterance of these homely words of comfort the little party had been walking up the ascent towards the inspector’s house, and now within its friendly walls, that had so recently sheltered his boy, Mr. Ryder learned all that was known concerning Phil and Serge. The former had gone with a party of egg-hunters to Walrus Islet, and so was away when the captain of the Phoca was obliged to depart in search of a poaching sealer of whose operations he had just learned.
“By-the-way, her name was the same as that of the schooner in which you have just come! Could she have been the same?” asked the inspector.
At this the stricken father groaned aloud, while Jalap Coombs answered, “I expect she is, sir, though it was all along of a mistake.”
“Of course it doesn’t matter,” said their host, “only it does seem rather hard. But, to return to my story, your son being away, his friend set out to fetch him, and went over to Walrus with a native, whose place Phil was to take for the return trip. They overtook the egg-hunters just as they were landing, the native was left with them, and the two lads started to return, in spite of the fact that, as night, accompanied by a thick fog, was shutting down, the hunters tried to dissuade them from the attempt.
“Your son shouted back: ‘It’ll be all right—we can’t miss it; and we must take the chances anyway, for we’re bound to get to Sitka!’ That was the last seen or heard of them.
“We did not feel any anxiety here until the egg-hunters returned the following day, for we had not expected that the lads would get back that night; but when the bidarrah came in without them we knew at once that something serious must have happened. By questioning the hunters, I learned that the wind had changed and blown fresh from the southward soon after the boys left them; also that the tide was flooding, with a strong current running north between Walrus and St. Paul. It seemed most likely, therefore, that the lads had been carried so far to the northward as to miss the island entirely, especially as the night was of unusual darkness.
“As soon as I obtained these facts I prepared for sea the little schooner that we use to maintain communication between here and St. George, manned her with a crew of picked men, and sent her out with orders to cruise back and forth to the northward of the islands for a week, in the hope of picking them up. Upon his return the captain of this vessel reported that he had been as far as one hundred miles to the northward, keeping the sharpest kind of a lookout all the time, but without avail.”
“So you do not think there is the slightest chance that we shall ever see them again?” asked Mr. Ryder, in a voice that betrayed his own hopelessness.
“I will not say so,” replied the inspector; “for, of course, there are always chances, and while doubt exists there is also room for hope.”
“Of course there is, sir! a plenty of it and rightly, too!” broke in Jalap Coombs, who had followed the inspector’s narrative with the closest attention. “My friend, old Kite Roberson, uster say that Hope was the thing of all in this world he had the greatest respec’ and admiration for, ’cause ye couldn’t kill it, and every time it got a knock-down it would pop up agin bright and smiling in some onexpected place. So I say, let’s tie to Hope, and not give up those boys yet awhile. This gentleman has kindly give us the dark view of this case, now ’spose we takes a squint at the bright side.”