Suddenly Phil halted, his face paled, and his lips quivered with emotion. "The sea!" he gasped. "Over there, Serge!" Jalap Coombs caught the words, and was on his feet in an instant, all his pain forgotten in a desire to once more catch a glimpse of his beloved salt water. "Yes," replied Serge, after a long look. "It certainly is a narrow bay. How I wish we knew what one! But, Phil! what is that, down there near the foot of the cliffs? Is it--can it be--a house?" "Where?" cried Phil. "Yes, I see! I do believe it is! Yes, it certainly is a house." CHAPTER XXXVI. THE MOST FAMOUS ALASKAN GLACIER. That little house nestling at the base of a precipitous mountain, and still nearly a mile away, was just then a more fascinating sight to our half-starved, toil-worn travellers than even the sea itself, and filled with a hopeful excitement they hastened toward it. It was probably a salmon cannery or saltery, or a trading-post. At any rate the one house they had discovered was that of a white man; for it had a chimney, and none of the Tlingits or natives of southern Alaska build chimneys. While Phil and Jalap Coombs were full of confidence that a few minutes more would find them in a settlement of white men, Serge was greatly puzzled, and, though he said little, kept up a deal of thinking as he tugged at the rawhide sledge-trace. He felt that he ought to know the place, for he did not believe they were one hundred miles from Sitka; but he could not remember having heard of any white settlement on that part of the coast, except at the Chilkat cannery, and this place did not correspond in any particular with what he had heard of that. At length they rounded the last low spur of the ridge, and came upon the house only a few rods away. For a few moments they stood motionless, regarding it in silence, and with a bitter disappointment. It was roughly but substantially constructed of sawed lumber, had a shingled roof, two glass windows, a heavy door, and a great outside chimney of rough stone. But it was closed and deserted. No hospitable smoke curled from its chimney, there was no voice of welcome nor sign of human presence. Nor was there another building of any kind in sight. "I suppose we may as well keep on and examine the interior, now that we've come so far," said Phil, in a disgusted tone that readily betrayed his feelings. "There doesn't seem to be any one around to prevent us. I only wish there was."