the sunlight on emerging from the windowless cabin.

"That you, Harry?" he inquired.

"No, it's me---Branks," replied the other man. "Confound your
eyesight, Joe! can't you tell an honest poor cuss from a crook?"

He laughed at this merry sally, and Joe Durgan responded with a snort.

"Who you-all got thar?" was his next question, as the others came
up. "A kid, eh? What you-all doin' with _him_?" He blinked at Hugh,
much as a sleepy owl blinks at a hunter who has discovered its nest.
Then a thought crossed his mind: "O-ho! you're one o' the crowd
campin' o'er yonder!"

"Right you are, Mr. Durgan!" declared Hugh with calm politeness. "But
why I've been captured and brought here, I don't quite see. I wasn't
doing any harm that I know of just prowling around the islands for
the fun of it,---nothing more."

"Whar your frien's?"

"Don't know, I'm sure. They'll be over here looking for me in a
short while, I guess."

"They will, eh? Don't say so? Well, come in and make yourself to
home."

There was something so sinister in this invitation and in the leer
which accompanied it, that Hugh felt a qualm of misgiving. He hung