birth-place and sit down under it to dispense the law of God and of men with all the wit they may.
Dick turned from the window in Baxter's small private room and came back to warm his hands at the stove where the driftwood shone umber and sky-blue and salty purple. He had been at the Island a fortnight, and he had learned some of the things which he had come for. And his knowledge kept him awake at nights because, for the present, it condemned him to inertia. With Selkirk, one of the two constables under Baxter at the detachment, he had made a long and exhaustive trip east among the Esquimaux on Baillie Island and beyond it, and there he had heard a few stray facts about Grange's Andree. Two Esquimaux of the Nunatalmute tribe—the bold and honest hunters and trappers of the mainland—had brought her across Mackenzie Bay, and there she had joined a family party going east in one of the great deep-sea umiaks wherein the Esquimaux make their long voyages. Dick had come back to Herschel in disgust.
"She must have started just about the time the whalers went out," he said. "Were there any going back to San Francisco this year, and would they have taken her aboard supposing they were?"
"There's the 'Aida,' Captain Ormundsen. He's got his wife with him, and he was going out if he took whales. He had bad luck last year. And the 'Skagway' didn't intend winterin' again. Closely was master of her and a bad lot. He'd take Andree just to give us trouble. The 'Fanny' reckoned to go out, but she's back. Got no whales, and her master persuaded the men to try another season. They're losin' money, an' they'll keep on losin' it, I guess. Likely some of 'em will desert this winter, an' we'll have to hunt 'em. And then there's the 'Rocket.' She aimed to go out; but I guess Jack Scott'll bring her back. He's a Yank, and he'll stick at it till he has to hammer his way home through ice. If Andree went aboard the 'Rocket' there'll be rows. I remember her in Grey Wolf before your time. She had all the place by the ears then. A wild young devil she was, always. That's the only four as wintered here last year."
"Ah! And if Andree has gone out on any of those
