'I could go back along-shore.'

'There are miles of piny-wood swamps where the streams come down; no,
you could not do it, unless you went away round to Lake Superior
again, and struck across the country as you did before. That would
take you a month or two, and the summer is almost over. You would not
risk a Northern snowstorm, I reckon. But say, do you see things coming
ashore?'

'The poor bodies will come, no doubt,' said Waring, sternly.

'Not yet; and they don't often come in here, anyway; they're more
likely to drift out to sea.'

'Miserable creature, this is not the first time, then?'

'Only four times,--only four times in fifteen long years, and then
only when she was close to starvation,' pleaded the old man. 'The
steamer was honestly wrecked,--the Anchor, of the Buffalo
line,--honestly, I do assure you; and what I gathered from her--she
did not go to pieces for days--lasted me a long time, besides
furnishing the castle. It was a godsend to me, that steamer. You must
not judge me, boy; I work, I slave, I go hungry and cold, to keep her
happy and warm. But times come when everything fails and starvation
is at the door. She never knows it, none of them ever knew it, for I
keep the keys and amuse them with little mysteries; but, as God is my
judge, the wolf has been at the door, and is there this moment unless
I have luck. Fish? There are none in shore where they can catch them.
Why do I not fish for them? I do; but my darling is not accustomed to
coarse fare, her delicate life must be delicately nourished. O, you do