The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1877-02-01

diggings to make his fortune, while
his child was sent off home out of thu
| way.
All this history took a length o
time to tell, and before it was done
old Ben woke up with start. III.
looked round the sea as If to make
quite sure he had not gone to the bot
tom in his sleep, and then noddine
cheerfully to his charge and to me be
gan to sean the horizon to the north
and northwest.
"Land!" he cried, pointing to what
seemed a little bank of cloud, as big a:
a mans hand, rising out of the circl.
of which we were in the CENTER
Land ahead of us. Land thirty
miles off. Heart up, my pretty, and :
double ration for breakfast. Now
Mr.. Warneford, the breeze is light
but we'll up sail and make what run.
ming we can. Maybe by noon W,
must get the sculls out.
Our captivity in the boat had beer
too short for us to feel any of the suf
ferings or disappointed hopes which
make the story of shipwreck SO often
tragic. We had suffered nothing be.
yond exposure on a summer sea for
four-and-twenty hours. But the Ger.
iainty of a speedy deliverance paled
my cheek, and brought the tears to
Miss Elwood's eyes.
"Let us have morning prayer" she
said, "and thank God for this deliv-
| erance."
Ben Croil nodded. AT the same
time he cut an inch or so of tobacco
for fresh filling, and winked at me
as much as to say that we were no,
out of the wood yet.
We were not, indeed.
The land, as we drew nearer, seem.
a long and low islet, without any hills
and covered with some sort of low
lying vegetation. 1t was less than
thirty miles from us, because while ii
was seven in the morning when it be-
came visible, by ten we were within
a mile, beating about for the best
place of landing.
1.-THE island of st. Peter" said Miss
Elwood. II never heard of that
island; tell me about it, Mr.. Croil."
mo one never heard about it." he
said, except them as made the charts
because no one never goes there. But
they pass by, do the ships, and they
will pick US up. 1t may be to-mor-
row; it may be in years time; ii
may be in ten years time. The whal-
ers have been known to touch there,
SO there must be water; and where
there's water there's birds, and where
there's water there's fish; and so what
l says again is, heart up, my pretty
Luff, Mr.. Warneford.'
There was little creek, up which
Ben steered the boat; it opened into a
round bay or harbor, capable of hold.
ing half the ships i'm the world. Or
either side was the land, not in cliffs
or hills, but in low table-land. In one
place a little cascade, ten or twenty
feet high, fell into the blue water,
with a rainbow hanging over it, and
in another we saw the remains of a
rude Lighthouse, built out Of boat
planks. To this spot we steered, and
landed on a point of gray sand, up
which we two men pulled the boat
high and dry above the tide. There
we disembarked our young lady. The
first thing to do was to visit the log
house. The door had fallen from its
rude hinges, which had been of leath-
er; there had been rough kind Of
window-shutter, which could never
have been weather-tight, was built up
with planks, of which half dozen
had been blown off.
We looked inside.
On the floor lay skeleton. Dressed
in rough sailors clothes, the hands in
gloves, the feet in great boots-a skele-
ton. He lay with his head upon his
arm, as if he had given up the ghost
painlessly. Beside him were chair,
rude sort of table and bed. Shelves
had been rugged up in the walls Of
the house, and on these stood stores.-
There were bottles still full of rum,
tins of provisions, cases of biscuit,
cases of candles-all sorts of things.
We stood looking in horror at this
spectacle of death, which greeted us
on our landing, as if it were bad
omen.
Dead" said Ben Croil. "Dead
this many day; and no ships touch
ed here all the time. Well, he's left
his house to US, Mr.. Warneford we
must bury him somehow"
"And are we to live here-here- -
in the same house?' dried Helen.-
"Oh, it will be like living in charnel-
house."
So it would; but what were we to
doc
ihaiis We NV oii a COMPROMISE
We would take down the frame work
when we had buried the skeleton,
and rebuild the house further Off
We looked in the dead mans pockets
there was not scrap of paper to
identify him by, not any morsel of
writing anywhere, to show who he
was and what had been his history.
Ben took the boots, the overcoat,
and the gloves, as well as purse con-
tanning some English money. Then
we dug, with the aid of two-inch
board, a grave in the sand, and laid
the poor bones to rest until the Last
Day. When we came back from our
dreary job we found that Miss Elwood
had been weeping, at least the tears
stood in her eyes; but she brushed
Their: away and made herself helpful,
running backward and forward to
the boat and bringing up everything
that she could carry.
Our house was not finished for sew
e,al days; but we made scnt for her
and slept in front Of it ourselves, so
that no harm might come to her ex-
cept over our own bodies. In the day
time we were busy building. We
found bag of tools, part of the be-
ul;pSt Of oilr moor Robinson CrnSoa