It was about three o'clock of that afternoon when the _Fair Puget_, a lumber schooner from Puget Sound, hove into sight on her return trip from Shanghai, where she had recently discharged a cargo of timber. The trim little ship was sailing under a fair wind and the veteran captain, Thomas N. Thompson, was at the wheel. "Come here, Jack," said he to his lone mate, as he knocked the ashes from a rusty box-elder pipe, which he jammed into his grey trousers hip pocket. "Try the glasses on yon bit of drift, Jack, and see if y'u c'n make out the like of it." Jack took the long, brass-trimmed, rust-stained glasses and adjusted them to his widely set eyes, threw his shoulders back and his middle forward, and squinted with first one eye, then the other. Presently he lowered the glasses and with much deliberation drew from his washed-out overalls pocket a long plug of navy, from which he calmly bit a huge quid. He then raised the glasses a second time, taking great pains as he did so to re-adjust and fit them to the importance of the occasion. After several times shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he lowered the glasses and placed his arms akimbo and said in an offhand manner: "I don't see nothin'. I guess it's a log'r two adrift. Glad we don't have to reef in--she's makin' a deuced good eight knots now, and I don't see no let up ahe'd." "S'p'osin' you give me a spell here't the wheel, Jack, and let me take a squint on't. Somehow I feel it in my bones--feel't there's something more'n drift in that bunch," said Tom N., as he was familiarly called over at the Blakely Mills, where he had been getting charters since the first cargo left its port. "All right, cap'n. You're the judge, and I'm not objectin',so long as we don't have to heave to. It 'u'd be a tarnation pity to spile this beautiful head on--you know we're already short on time. That whirler was a corker, wan't she, cap'n?" said the easygoing fellow, as he spattered the deck with fresh tobacco juice and toyed with the wheel, which stood loosely wound at his side. "Jack," said the captain, presently, with a feeling of great satisfaction, "there's something besides 'still life' in that heap, if I'm not mightily mistaken. See that school of shark round there?" "Are y'u sure them's not dog fish, cap'n?" queried the pretending mate, who was still anxious to make good use of a favourable wind, if not to avoid hauling in the sails. "Yep; they're shark, sure enough," continued the captain, now more certain than ever. "I guess we'll have to haul to, mate. It won't do to pass somethin' in distress--not so long as Tom N. is the poop sheik of a gig sloop. Not on your life, mate! And who knows but one of us'll be the very next to man a like un'?" "Well, I s'pose it's the order, then?" said Jack, gloomily. "I'll bet, though, it's nothin' more'n a 'Jap,' even if we do heave to."