For a minute the stranger looked thoughtful but made no sign. Then, dipping his finger in a bowl of water, he wrote on the table the single word: "To-morrow." Having thus dismissed the subject for the present, he stretched his huge frame on a transom and almost instantly fell asleep.
Our tired lads were not long in following his example, and, though several times during the alight one or the other of them got up to replenish the fire, they always found their guest quietly sleeping. But when they both awoke late the following morning and looked for him he had disappeared.
CHAPTER XXI.
A WELCOME MISSIONARY.
Although the outer garments of wolf fur belonging to the mysterious stranger were also missing, our lads were not at first at all uneasy concerning his absence, but imagined that their guest had merely gone for a breath of fresh air or to examine the situation of the schooner by daylight. So they mended the fire and got breakfast ready, expecting with each moment that he would return. As he did not, Cabot finally went on deck to look for him.
The morning was bitterly cold, and the harbour was covered with ice sufficiently strong to bear a man.
"The old 'Bee's' found her winter berth at last," reflected Cabot, as he glanced about him, shivering in the keen air.
To his disappointment he could discover no trace of the man upon whom they were depending to aid their escape from this icy prison. Cabot even dropped to the beach and made his way to the crest of the inland bluffs, but could see no living thing on all the vast expanse of snow outspread before him.
"I guess he has gone, all right," muttered the lad, "and we are again left to our own resources, only a little worse off than we were before. Why he came and helped us out at all, though, is a mystery to me."