“Phil! Phil! Wake up!” he cried, in a low tone, at the same time shaking his drowsy comrade. “There are men outside! A lot of them! And I hear something that sounds like escaping steam.”
“Oh, you must be dreaming!” replied the other, incredulously. “No, I declare you are right, for I hear them myself!”
With this both lads sprang to their feet and rushed outside. The sight that met their astonished gaze was that of a number of men busily engaged in tearing down the stone walls of the old hut in which the seal-skins were stored. Others were bearing the skins away and depositing them in a ship’s boat that a couple of sailors were fending off from the rocks.
“Hello there!” shouted Phil, running down and plunging into the midst of this busy scene. “Who are you, and what do you mean by stealing our seal-skins?”
The men paused in their labor to gaze at this sudden apparition. “His seal-skins! Will ye listen to the cheek of that?” exclaimed one of them, mockingly. “The young beggar will be saying this is his island next.”
“Yes, my seal-skins!” cried Phil, hot with indignation. “Even if they were not, they aren’t yours. You are a lot of thieves and highway robbers, and if there is any law in this forsaken country you shall suffer for this outrage――see if you don’t!”
A roar of laughter greeted this speech, and a number of insolent retorts would have been made to it had not a young man in uniform, who seemed to be the leader of the party, appeared at this moment from the interior of the hut.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded, in a tone of authority. “Hustle those skins along lively, men!” Then, turning to Phil and Serge, he demanded, roughly, “Well, who are you, and what do you want here?”
“Supposing you answer my question first,” replied Phil, hotly. “Who are you, and by what authority are you stealing our seal-skins?”
“Oh, they are yours, are they?” retorted the other, surveying the irate lad from head to foot with an amused smile. “Very well, if you claim them, the best thing you can do is to go off to the ship and present your claim to the captain. He is only too glad of a chance to settle all such matters. Coxswain, take these chaps aboard ship, present them to the captain with my compliments, and tell him that they are desirous of a settlement in connection with these seal-skins, which they claim as their property.”