presence on the earth. Nor would there likely be any. Except by
misadventure no ship on any course ever showed more than a topmast above
this horizon. Of the hunters and fishermen who roamed the islands nearer
shore, with the Chandeleurs, the storm-drowned Grand Gosiers and the deep-
sea fishing grounds beyond, few knew the way hither, and fewer ever sailed
it. At the sound of his gun the birds of the beach--sea-snipe, curlew,
plover--showed the whites of their wings for an instant and fell to
feeding again. Save when the swift Wilderness--you remember the revenue
cutter?-chanced this way on her devious patrol, only the steamer of the
light-house inspection service, once a month, came up out of the southwest
through yonder channel and passed within hail on her way from the stations
of the Belize to those of Mississippi Sound; and he knew--had known before
he left the New Basin--that she had just gone by here the day before.

But to Gregory this solitude brought no quick distress. With a bird or two
at his belt he turned again toward his dying fire. Once on the way he
paused, as he came in sight of the sloop, and gazed upon it with a
faintness of heart he had not known since his voyage began. However, it
presently left him, and hurrying down to her side he began to unload her
completely, and to make a permanent camp in the lee of a ridge of sand
crested with dwarfed casino bushes, well up from the beach. The night did
not stop him, and by the time he was tired enough for sleep he had
lightened the boat of everything stowed into her the previous day. Before
sunrise he was at work again, removing her sandbags, her sails, flags,
cordage, even her spars. The mast would have been heavy for two men to
handle, but he got it out whole, though not without hurting one hand so
painfully that he had to lie off for over two hours. But by midday he was
busy again, and when at low water poor Sweetheart comfortably turned upon
her side on the odorous, clean sand, it was never more to rise. The keen,
new axe of her master ended her days.