approaching the kettle, he found it full of smooth pebbles.

"Take out those stones," said Dawes.

Frere obeyed, and saw at the bottom of the kettle a quantity of sparkling white powder, and the sides of the vessel crusted with the same material.

"How did you get it ?"

"I filled the kettle with sea-water, and then heating those pebbles red-hot in the fire, dropped them into it. We could have caught the steam in a cloth and wrung out fresh water had we wished to do so. But, thank God, we have plenty."

Frere started. "Did you learn that at the settlement, too?" he asked.

Rufus Dawes laughed, with a sort of bitterness in his tones.

Do you think I have been at the 'settlement' all my life? The thing is very simple; it is merely evaporation."

Frere burst out in sudden, fretful admiration : What a fellow you are, Dawes ! What are you—I mean, what have you been?"

A triumphant light came into the other's

face, and for the instant he seemed about to reply by some startling revelation. But the light faded, and he checked himself with a gesture of pain.

"I am a convict. Never mind what I have been. A sailor, shipbuilder, prodigal, vagabond-what does it matter. It won't alter my fate, will it ?"

"If we get safely back," says Frere, “I'll ask for a free pardon for you. You deserve it."

Come," returned Dawes, with a discordant laugh. "Let us wait until we do get back."

"You don't believe me?"

"I don't want favour at your hands," he said, with a return of the old fierceness. "Let us get to work. Bring up the rushes here, and tie them with a fishing-line."

At this instant Sylvia came up. "Good afternoon, Mr. Dawes. Hard at work? Oh! what's this in the kettle?"

The voice of the child acted like a charm
He smiled quite cheer-

upon Rufus Dawes.

fully.

"Salt, miss.

goats with that."

I am going to catch the

"Catch the goats! How? Put it on their tails?" she cried, merrily.

"Goats are fond of salt, and when I get over to the Pilot Station, I shall set traps for them baited with this salt. When they come to lick it, I shall have a noose of catgut ready to catch them-do you understand ?"

"But how will you get across?"

"You will see to-morrow."

HE next morning Rufus Dawes was stirring by daylight. He first got his catgut wound upon a piece of stick, and then, having moved his frail floats alongside the little rock that served as a pier, he took a fishing-line and a larger piece of stick, and proceeded to draw a diagram on the sand. This diagram when completed represented a rude outline of a punt, eight feet long and three broad. At certain distances were eight points-four on each side-into which small willow rods were driven. He then awoke Frere, and showed the diagram to him. "Get eight stakes of celery-top pine," he said. "You can burn them where you cannot

cut them, and drive a stake into the place of each of these willow wands. When you have done that, collect as many willows as you can. get. I shall not be back until to-night. Now give me a hand with the floats."

Frere, coming to the pier, saw Dawes strip himself, and piling his clothes upon the stuffed goat-skin, stretch himself upon the reed bundles, and, paddling with his hands, push off from the shore. The clothes floated high and dry, but the reeds, depressed by the weight of the body, sank so that the head of the the convict alone appeared above water. In this fashion he gained the middle of the current, and the out-going tide swept him down towards the mouth of the harbour.

Frere, sulkily admiring, went back to prepare the breakfast-they were on half rations now, Dawes having forbidden the slaughtered goat to be eaten, lest his expedition should prove unsuccessful-wondering at the chance which had thrown this convict in his way. "Parsons would call it 'a special providence,' he said to himself. "For if it hadn't been for him, we should never have got thus far. If his boat' succeeds, we're all right, I suppose. He's a clever dog. I wonder who he is." His training as a master of convicts

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