With the knowledge thus obtained, the copper was removed, and several of the seams examined.  The condition of the pitch and oakum pointed out the precise spots that needed attention, and the caulking-irons were immediately set at work.  In about a week the job was completed, as was fancied, the copper re-placed, and the schooner was got afloat again.  Great was the anxiety to learn the effect of what had been done, and quite as great the disappointment, when it was found that there was still a serious leak that admitted too much water to think of going to sea until it was stopped.  A little head-work, however, and that on the part of Roswell, speedily gave a direction to the search that was immediately set on foot.

“This leak is not as low down as the vessel’s bilge,” he said; “for the water did not run out of her, nor into her, until we got her afloat.  It is somewhere, then, between her light-water load-line and her bilge.  Now we have had all the copper off, and the seams examined in the wake of this section of the vessel’s bottom, from the fore-chains to the main; and, in my judgment, it will be found that something is wrong about her stem, or her stern-post.  Perhaps one of her wood-ends has started.  Such a thing might very well have happened under so close a squeeze.”

“In which case we shall have to lay the craft ashore again, and go to work anew,” answered Daggett.  “I see how it is; you do not like the delay, and are thinking of Deacon Pratt and Oyster Pond.  I do not blame you, Gar’ner; and shall never whisper a syllable ag’in you, or your people, if you sail for home this very afternoon; leaving me and mine to look out for ourselves.  You’ve stood by us nobly thus far, and I am too thankful for what you have done already, to ask for more.”

Was Daggett sincere in these professions?  To a certain point he was; while he was only artful on others.  He wished to appear just and magnanimous; while, in secret, it was his aim to work on the better feelings, as well as on the pride of Gardiner, and thus secure his services in getting his own schooner ready, as well as keep him in sight until a certain key had been examined, in the proceeds of which he conceived he had a share, as well as in those of Sealer’s Land.  Strange as it may seem, even in the strait in which he was now placed, with so desperate a prospect of ever getting his vessel home again, this man clung like a leech to the remotest chance of obtaining property.  There is a bull-dog tenacity on this subject, among a certain portion of the great American family—­the god-like Anglo-Saxon—­that certainly leads to great results in one respect; but which it is often painful to regard, and never agreeable to any but themselves, to be subject to.  Of this school was Daggett, whom no dangers, no toil, no thoughts of a future, could divert from a purpose that was coloured by gold.  We do not mean to say that other nations are not just as mercenary; many are more so; those, in particular, that have long been corrupted by vicious governments.  You may buy half a dozen Frenchmen, for instance, more easily than one Yankee; but let the last actually get his teeth into a dollar, and the muzzle of the ox fares worse in the jaws of the bull-dog.