He spoke to her in Spanish, asking what had happened, and she appeared to have a vague sense of his meaning; but her eyes were glistening with terror and fever, and he could make nothing of a mumbled reply except a word that sounded like _humo_, "smoke." She showed extreme fear at sight of the gun carried by Sturgess. Holding out her left hand as if pleading for mercy, she collapsed with a groan.

Sturgess, of course, was as fully aware as his companion of the difficulties raised by the discovery of this maimed creature.

"Well, by way of a change, Alec, I guess we're up against a mighty tough proposition," he said, scratching his head in sheer perplexity.

"We have only one course open, I take it," said Maseden, though he, like Sturgess, felt that they might well have been spared this additional burden.

"That's so. But--are broken legs in your line?"

"I have a notion that the bone-setter has to straighten and adjust the fracture by main force, and then bind the limb tightly, leaving the rest to nature. We have a spare oar. Chop the blade into two lengths of about fifteen inches, and get the girls to cut narrow strips out of the canvas cover. Bring me my oilskin, and what is left of the cover. We can carry her in that. Leave the rifle with me--and hurry! On no account must either Nina or Madge come away from the boat. Be sure and impress that on them. We may have to run for our lives any second."

Sturgess soon returned with the improvised splints and bandages. He also brought a tin of beef essence which Madge had found among the boat's stores and was hoarding carefully for such Lucullian feast when soup would appear on the menu.

When Maseden spoke of the remains of the canvas cover he had in mind the fact that the girls had fashioned the greater part of the coarse material into divided skirts. Seals were not plentiful in Rotunda Bay, and the devising of garments had become a sheer necessity.

They persuaded the Indian girl to swallow some of the beef extract.

After tasting the first mouthful she would have emptied the tin, but this Maseden would not permit, because he knew the ordeal that was coming.

It was a tough job, too. In a sense, it almost proved more trying for the amateur surgeons than for their unfortunate patient. Luckily, she fainted at the first wrench. Then they set their teeth and pulled the broken bones into their correct positions as well as they could adjudge them. When the girl revived she was already clothed in the oilskin and slung in the canvas sheet as in a hammock, while the limb was bound immovably between two roughly fashioned splints.

Maseden imagined that this creature of the wild was, in all probability, as hardy as a cormorant, and equally voracious. At any rate, when laid in the boat, she gobbled up the remaining contents of the tin, ate ravenously of ship's biscuits and salt beef, and drank a mug of coffee in a gulp. When she discovered that no more food would be supplied she yielded to an evidently overwhelming desire to sleep.

Before closing her eyes, however, she had something to say. She was afraid of the men, but obviously placed trust in the two girls, neither of whom knew a syllable of Spanish beyond the few phrases which all travelers in South America must perforce acquire.

Madge, having the gift of music, contrived to mimic certain words with tolerable accuracy, and "smoke," "boats," "bad men," seemed, to Maseden's ear, to emerge from the guttural Indian accents. In one important respect, the wishes of the new addition to the party were quite understandable. She pointed to Providence Beach, indicated the boat, and made it clear that she counselled a prompt move eastward.

At last Maseden evolved a fairly intelligible notion of what she was endeavoring to convey. He believed, and rightly so, that she was telling her rescuers how a number of Indians had been attracted to Hanover Island by the smoke of the castaways' fire. They assumed a wreck, with its prospect of loot, and, egged on by greed, had ultimately dared a passage hitherto regarded as impracticable. Some had been killed; others had escaped, and were now on the camping-ground at Providence Beach.

Apparently the girl was warning these strangers against her own people and recommending a speedy flight to safer quarters. Oddly enough, her advice coincided with Maseden's own views. By landing on that part of the coast, and lighting a fire, they would be incurring a grave risk if there were Indians about, since the few miles' strip of shore, difficult though it was, would be negotiated easily by natives.

The abandonment of the injured girl he could not account for, nor was he sure the boat had been observed, granted even that Providence Beach was not actually occupied by savages. But he was not inclined to take any chances. Deep water flowed yet in the main channel, and the day was not far advanced.

So he and Sturgess shipped the oars and pulled until they were weary; before night fell they had met the rising tide, and made a good landing, not on Hanover Island, but on the eastern end of Island Number Two.

They slept in the boat as best they could, the men taking turns at mounting guard, as in addition to the now somewhat improbable chance of being attacked, their craft had to be maneuvered into slack water as the tide rose and fell. They were all heartily glad to see the dawn and eat a good meal.

The very smell of food awakened the Indian girl. Like a healthy animal recovering from hardship, she was growing plumper and comelier under their very eyes. With each hour she shed a year in appearance, and her confidence increased in about the same ration.

When she discovered that Maseden alone spoke Spanish she tried to explain matters to him. But her own knowledge of the language was of the slightest, and he was only able to confirm his overnight belief as to the danger of remaining in the vicinity of their first landing-place.

Singularly his close acquaintance with the San Juan _patois_ proved most helpful. It occurred to him that this might be so, as the root words of Indian tribes throughout the South American continent have undergone fewer changes than would have been the case among civilized peoples.

Many were in use among the Spanish half-castes on the ranch, and this aborigine grasped their meaning at once. Good linguist though he was, however, Maseden failed to extract more than a glimmering of sense from her uncouth accents.

But none could fail to be impressed by her relief when the boat was afloat and traveling east. They soon quitted the channel between the islands and entered the wide expanse of Nelson Straits. The weather was fine, and a steady wind from the southwest encouraged Maseden to rig the sail.

Having a wholesome respect for the Pacific tides, he meant to hug the coast of Hanover Island. But after studying the clouds intently for an hour, the Indian girl signified that she wished to be lifted in her hammock. She then pointed to some small islands just distinguishable on the horizon, and apparently situated in the middle of the straits.

She saw the hesitancy in Maseden's face, and by this time had evidently singled him out as the leader of the party. Then she turned to Nina Forbes, and her gestures said as plainly, no doubt, as her words:

"If _I_ can't persuade him, perhaps _you_ can. Tell him to take the course I recommend."

For some reason Nina's cheeks grew scarlet under the brown tan of constant exposure to the weather, nor did a pronounced wink by Sturgess at Madge tend to restore her composure. But she met the Indian girl's appeal with seeming nonchalance and bravely ignored the obvious inference.

"I suppose she thinks that I may exercise some influence in the matter, Alec," she said, striving in vain to suppress a nervous little laugh. "I do honestly believe she means well. She is extraordinarily grateful to us. I have been watching her, and there is a dog-like devotion in her eyes when we render any little service that is reassuring."

"Those islets out there may be bare rocks," protested Maseden. He had little knowledge of sailing boats, and hesitated at a long trip in these fickle waters.

"Perhaps that is why she wishes us to go that way. They lie due east, and that is something in their favor."

Still was he dubious, largely owing to the intervening stretch of open sea, but again he essayed to question their would-be pilot.

The girl was quite emphatic in her direction as to the course, and equally opposed to the more cautious method he favored. A good deal of this was expressed in pantomime, but it was none the less understandable.

Finally, finding that the others had faith in her, Maseden nodded to Madge, who was at the tiller, as the rudder had been shipped when the sail was hoisted; and the boat was put across the wind. The Indian girl smiled, and was satisfied. They lifted her down to her place amidships, where her head rested on the package of treasure, and she remained there contentedly many hours.

Long before the violet-hued blurs in front took definite shape as a group of two fair-sized islands, with trees, lying among a great many stark rocks, sticking straight up out of the sea, the voyagers became aware of at least one good reason for their guide's choice of direction.

The coast of Hanover Island began to fall away sharply to the northeast, and a wide gap opened up between it and the nearest land, a gap which must have been crossed in any event.

Maseden himself was the first to admit that they had been given sound advice.

Luckily the wind remained steady, and brought their craft on at a fair pace against a falling tide. Nevertheless it was a long sail, far longer than any of them had anticipated, and the shadows were deepening when the men again lifted the Indian girl level with the gunwale to find out if she could recommend the safest way of approaching a particularly forbidding shore.

She understood at once what they wanted, and indicated a narrow channel between two gigantic outlying rocks. Though it was precisely the one of three possible waterways which no stranger would have chosen, they did not dream now of disputing her judgment. The passage was made more easily than they had counted on, and a second time was their faith justified, because a strip of white beach soon showed on the line where trees and sea met.

The boat was run ashore, and a fire was lighted. The weather had become much colder, probably owing to the absence of shelter from the hills under which they had camped during the past month. The Indian girl offered no objection to the fire. In fact, when laid near it in a sand hollow, she fell asleep long before any of them.

The boat, of course, had to be safeguarded, as they landed at low water.

Were it not for a fissure in the rock which permitted them to row fully a quarter of a mile nearer high-water mark than would have been possible otherwise, they must have devoted a wearisome time to the task of hauling her in as the tide rose. Fortunately, there was no heavy surf.

The reefs they had seen some fifteen miles to the westward had broken up the long Pacific rollers, and the breeze was not strong enough to disturb this inland sea.

Nina and Madge elected to sleep on the sand.

"You can have too much of a good thing," explained Madge laughingly, "and, greatly as I prize our ark, I am tired of it to-day. Every bone in my body is aching."

They had, of course, given up each skin and strip of canvas they possessed in order to render the Indian girl more comfortable during the voyage, and a ship's boat can be a most irksome conveyance in such circumstances.

When the tide was high Sturgess and Maseden, before they, too, turned in, rose to make sure that the anchor could not drag during the night, and Sturgess electrified his friend by choosing that odd moment to allude to the Cartagena marriage.

"Say, Alec," he said, "you sure have had the time of your life ever since you were hauled off to San Juan and sentenced to be shot."

Maseden imagined that the New Yorker was merely referring to the incidents following the shipwreck.

"I don't see exactly how life has been more of a sizzle for me than for you and the girls," he said.

"Ah, come off it, Alec!" laughed the other. "You know better than that.

But I guess I'll have to hand the explanation on a tray. Madge and Nina have told the facts about your wedding. Gosh! What a jolt it must have given you to find your wife on board the _Southern Cross_!"

"You _know_?" gasped Maseden.