“So, to begin with, the day on which I were left, or, as some might ignorantly call it, desarted, by my young shipmates, on that very day along comes a schooner, the same _Philomeel_ that is now swinging under our starn. Although she were in charge of a crew of natyves, with a natyve cap’n, _and_ in a powerful hurry, she stopped at my signal and sent a boat ashore to see what was up.
“Do all I could I couldn’t strike no bargain with ’em, nor get ’em to wait till I could go for the boys. The best they would do was to offer me passage to Oonalaska, where her owner lived, who, so they said, would give me a charter in no time. So, seeing as I couldn’t do no better, and thinking I’d be back again inside of three days, I left a note for the boys and went aboard. We made a quick run to Oonalaska, but when I tried to get a charter out of the owner, he wouldn’t hear of nothing but cash down, and as I hadn’t dollars enough to charter a dingy, let alone a schooner, there I was. For the best part of a week I stayed in that melancholy seaport, wishing as I’d never heered of it, and laboring day by day with the shark what owns the _Philomeel_. I offered him a quarter of the seal-skins, then a half, and finally the whole of ’em, only to let his schooner go and fetch off the boys.”
“What a horrid, avaricious old thing he must be!” cried Miss May, indignantly.
“It ain’t no name for it, marm――that is to say, miss. He is a ‘hunks’ if ever there was one, and so I up and told him. He said he didn’t believe I had any seal-skins, but just wanted to get his schooner for a poaching cruise in the sea. While I was thus jibing and filling without making an inch of headway, a Dutch steamer come in, and I offered the skins to him to go and fetch the boys back to Oonalaska; but the Dutchman was suspicious, like the rest of ’em, and said he was in a hurry to get to St. Michael’s, which, of course, I knowed the boys wouldn’t want to go there, anyway, seeing as it would make ’em wuss off than ever.
“Finally, when I was wellnigh desperate and at the end of my cable, the Sitka steamer came in, and I went aboard to see what I could do with her cap’n. There I run across the very Mr. Ryder what sits facing of me at this minute, who, when he heard me say as my name were Coombs, speaks up quick and sez, ‘Jalap?’ and I sez, ‘Jalap it is.’ Then he sez, fierce-like, ‘Where’s my boy?’ With that I knowed for the fust time who he was, and I sez, ‘Don’t ask me, Mr. Ryder, but count on me to help ye find him, for,’ sez I, ‘I’m as bound as you be to do it, ef it takes every seal-skin I’m wuth.’