Cook with it, that's all." The captain followed Cheditafa across the little stream, and a hundred yards or so along the shore, and over out of reach of the tide, piled against a low sand mound, he saw a quantity of wood, all broken into small pieces, and apparently prepared, as Cheditafa had suggested, for cooking-fires.

It was also easy to see that these pieces of wood had once been part of a boat, perhaps of a wreck thrown up on shore.

The captain approached the pile of wood and picked up some of the pieces.

As he held in his hand a bit of gunwale, not much more than a foot in length, his eyes began to glisten and his breath came quickly.

Hastily pulling out several pieces from the mass of debris, he examined them thoroughly.