As has been said, the island was not a large one, and he was not long in reaching the gaunt, dead tree. Somehow he felt a chill go through him as he stood beneath its leafless gray limbs. It reminded him oddly of that skeleton in the deck house of the derelict. But he pulled himself together and struck off into the woods in a direction that, by using his watch as a compass, he knew to be the west. The undergrowth was thick, but after going a few paces, he reached an open space. In the centre of this was a sight that made his heart jump and then beat wildly. Strewn in every direction were big tusks of yellow ivory, evidently lying just as they had been dug from the ground. Rob was still contemplating them when his eye caught the flutter of a rag of cloth at the edge of the open space. Attracted by a curiosity he could not account for, he made his way toward it. If the sight of the ivory had made him jump, what he now saw sent a chill of horror down his spine. The rag that had fluttered had been part of the clothing of what had once been two men. Both lay close together, their bones showing where the cloth had worn away under Time's finger. A pair of rusty pistols lying by each showed how they had come to their death. The whole tragedy was as clear to Rob as if he had seen it:--the quarrel between the two ivory stealers, the duel with the pistols, and the death of both combatants beside the treasure pile they had done so much wickedness to acquire. "Truly that figure in the deck house is avenged," thought Rob, gazing with horror-stricken eyes at the things before him. "Death was indeed the wages of sin in their case." Turning from the grisly relics of that far-off duel on the lonely island, Rob fell to examining the ivory. There was a large quantity of it. "It must be worth an immense sum," he thought. But in the very moment of his triumph, Rob suddenly recollected what, in his excitement, he had entirely forgotten for the moment. He was a castaway on a strange, uninhabited island, with only a few tins of beef between him and starvation. Thirst he did not fear, for close to where he had struggled ashore was a spring of sweet, cool water. Rob made his way back to the beach and the boat. Inside the boat he now noticed what had hitherto escaped his attention. There were several hundred feet of light rope which seemed to be still in fairly good condition. There was, too, a pair of oars. At the same moment the boy was seized by a sudden idea. He could get away from the island, and in a boat, too! His Boy Scout training had made him fertile in ideas, and if the present one succeeded it would mean his escape from a terrible fate. + + + + + Ensign Hargreaves and Mr. Barr looked sternly at each other. "There is only one man who could have taken that lever," said the ensign. "And that is who?" "The rascal Barton." "But for what possible object?"