to the north. Thus the _Mary Thomas_ had unwittingly drifted across the
line, and every hour she was penetrating, unwillingly, farther and
farther into the dangerous waters where the Russian bear kept guard.

How far she had drifted no man knew. The sun had not been visible for a
week, nor the stars, and the captain had been unable to take
observations in order to determine his position. At any moment a cruiser
might swoop down and hale the crew away to Siberia. The fate of other
poaching seal-hunters was too well known to the men of the _Mary
Thomas_, and there was cause for grave faces.

"Mine friends," spoke up a German boat-steerer, "it vas a pad piziness.
Shust as ve make a big catch, und all honest, somedings go wrong, und
der Russians nab us, dake our skins and our schooner, und send us mit
der anarchists to Siberia. Ach! a pretty pad piziness!"

"Yes, that's where it hurts," the sea lawyer went on. "Fifteen hundred
skins in the salt piles, and all honest, a big pay-day coming to every
man Jack of us, and then to be captured and lose it all! It'd be
different if we'd been poaching, but it's all honest work in open
water."

"But if we haven't done anything wrong, they can't do anything to us,
can they?" Bub queried.

"It strikes me as 'ow it ain't the proper thing for a boy o' your age
shovin' in when 'is elders is talkin'," protested an English sailor,
from over the edge of his bunk.

"Oh, that's all right, Jack," answered the sea-lawyer. "He's a perfect