With much care he proceeded to arrange the stones in the bottom of the boat until presently a very excellent fireplace was built, and so arranged that the boat itself was well protected.  No wood save driftwood was to be found on Itigailit Island or on the near-by shores, and therefore both Abel’s boat and Skipper Ed’s boat had been provided with sufficient firewood to meet the needs of their camp for several days.  And so, with fuel at hand, Abel quickly had a cozy fire blazing in his fireplace and Mrs. Abel, laughing and enjoying the novel experience of cooking in a boat, had some tea brewing and some bear’s steaks sizzling in the pan in a jiffy.

Skipper Ed’s trap boat, though a fine sea craft, was not so fast a sailer in a light breeze as Abel’s, and though Skipper Ed and Jimmy had left the island some little time in advance the boats were now so close that Abel could make himself heard, and standing in the bow he bawled: 

“Pujolik!  Pujolik!” (A steamer!  A steamer!)

A steamship in these waters was uncommon.  No steamer had ever come into the bay, indeed—­for they were still in the bay—­at least within the memory of man, and eager to see what manner of ship it might be Skipper Ed and Jimmy were on their feet in an instant, eagerly searching the eastern horizon.

Abel was immediately convulsed with laughter, and Mrs. Abel laughed, and Bobby laughed, and when Skipper Ed and Jimmy, failing to discover the steamer, or any signs of it, turned inquiringly back toward Abel, still standing in the bow, Abel pointed to the smoke rising from the fire, and repeated: 

“Pujolik!  Pujolik!”

Then Skipper Ed and Jimmy understood, and they laughed too.  It was a great joke, Abel thought, and for an hour afterward he indulged at intervals in quiet chuckles, and even after the two boats had drawn alongside, and tea and fried bear’s steaks had been passed to Skipper Ed and Jimmy, that they too might share in the feast, Abel laughed.

It was noon the following day when the boats drew up to the old landing place on Itigailit Island, and an hour later the two tents were pitched on Abel Zachariah’s old camping ground, and everything was as snug and settled, and they were all as perfectly at home, as though they had been living there for months.

Then the dogs in the skiffs were brought ashore and released from their two days’ confinement, and Abel’s train and Skipper Ed’s train, after the manner of Eskimo dogs, immediately engaged in a pitched battle.  They began by snarling and snapping at one another with ugly, bared fangs, and then followed a rush toward each other and they became a rolling, tumbling mass of fearsome, fighting creatures, and had to be beaten asunder with stout sticks before they could be induced to settle into their quiet and uneventful summer existence.

When all was arranged Bobby, after his custom, walked quietly back to the cairn which he had built in previous summers to mark the grave of the mysterious man that Abel and Mrs. Abel had buried so many years before, and Jimmy went with him.