"Come one o' those days, with the old Sally just loafin' along," pursued Cap'n Amazon, sucking hard on his pipe, "when I spied a flicker o' wind comin', and the mate he sent the men gallopin' up the shrouds. I'd forgot the dog. So had Nigger Bill, I reckon.

"Bill was one o' the best topmen aboard. He was up there at work before the dog woke up and started ki-yi-ing. He bayed Bill like a beagle hound at the foot of a coon tree. Then, jumping, he caught the lower shrouds with his forepaws.

"The new slant of the wind struck us at the same moment. The old Sally S. heeled to larboard and that Newfoundland was jerked over the rail."

"The poor thing!" Louise cried.

"You'd ha' thought so. I wouldn't have felt no worse if one of the men had gone over. Owner's business, or not, I sung out to the second to get his boat out and I kicked off my shoes, grabbed a life-ring, and jumped myself."

"You! Uncle Amazon?" gasped his niece.

"Yep. The mate had the deck and I was the only man free. There wasn't much of a sea runnin', anyway. No pertic'lar danger. That is, not commonly.

"But the minute I come up to the surface and rose breast-high, dashin' the water out o' my eyes so's to look around for the dog, I seen I'd been a leetle mite too previous, as the feller said. I hadn't taken into consideration one pertic'lar chance—like the feller't married one o' twins an' then couldn't tell which from t'other.

"I see Snowball the dog, all right; but headin' for him like a streak o' greased lightin' was the triandicular fin of a shark. I'd forgot all about those fellers; and we hadn't see one for weeks, anyway. In warmer waters than them the Sally S. Stern was then in, the sharks will come right up and stand with their noses out o' the sea begging like a dog for scraps. They'd bark, if they knew how, by gravy!

"Well," went on Cap'n Amazon while Louise listened spellbound, "that dog Snowball was in a bad fix. A dog's a dog—almost human as you might say. But I wasn't aimin' puttin' myself in a shark's mouth for a whole kennel full o' dogs.

"Mind you, not minutes but only seconds had passed since the dog shot outboard. The ship was not movin' fast. She heeled over again' and her spars and flappin' canvas was almost over my head as I glanced up.

"And then I seen a sight—I did, for a fact. I cal'late you never give a thought to how high the teetering top of a mast on such a vessel as the Sally S. Stern is, from the ocean level. Never did, eh?

"Well," as the enthralled Louise shook her head, "they're taller than a lot of these tall buildings you see in the city. 'Skyscrapers' they call 'em. That's what the old Sally's topmasts looked like gazin' up at 'em out of the sea. They looked like they brushed the wind-driven clouds chasin' overhead.

"And out o' that web of riggin' and small spars, and slattin' canvas, and other gear, I seen a man's body hurled into the air. It was Snowball, the man. Bill his right name was.

"Flung himself, he did, clean out o' the ship and as she heeled back to starboard he shot down, feet first, straight as a die, and made a hole in the sea not ha'f a cable's length from me and nearer the dog than I was. And as he came down I seen his open knife flashing in his hand.

"Yes, my dear, that was a mem'rable leap. Talk about these fellers jumpin' off that there Brooklyn Bridge! 'Tain't much higher.

"The mate brought the Sally S. Stern up into the wind, the second's crew got the boat over, and they picked me up in a jiffy. Then I stood up and yelled for 'em to pull on, for I could see the man, the dog, and the shark almost in a bunch together.

"But," concluded Cap'n Amazon, "a nigger ain't often much afraid of a shark. When we got to 'em there was a patch of bloody water and foam; but it wasn't the blood of neither of the Snowballs that was spilled. They come out of it without a scratch."

"Oh, Cap'n Amazon, what a really wonderful life you have led!" Louise said earnestly.

Cap'n Amazon's eye brightened, and he looked vastly pleased. Whenever he made a serious impression with one of his tales of personal achievement or peril, he was as frankly delighted as a child.

"Yes, ain't I?" he observed. "I don't for the life of me see how Abe's stood it ashore all these years. An' him keepin' a shop!" and he sniffed scornfully.

Before Louise could make rejoinder, or bolster up the reputation of the absent Cap'n Abe in any way, the noise of an automobile stopping before the store was audible,

"Now, if that's one o' them summer fellers, for gas I shall raise the price of it—I vow!" ejaculated Cap'n Amazon, but getting up briskly and laying aside his pipe and knitting.

The summons did not come on the store door. Somebody opened the gate, came to the side door and rapped. Cap'n Amazon shuffled into the hall and held parley with the caller.

"Why, come right in! Sure she's here—an' we're both sittin' up for comp'ny," Louise heard the captain say heartily.

He ushered in Lawford Tapp. Not the usual Lawford, in rough fisherman's clothing or boating flannels—or even in the chauffeur's uniform Louise supposed he sometimes wore. But in the neat, well-fitting clothing of what the habit-advertising pages of the magazines term the "up to date young man." His sartorial appearance outclassed that of any longshoreman she had ever imagined.

Louise gave him her hand with just a little apprehension. She realized that for a young man to make an evening call upon a girl in a simple community such as Cardhaven might cause comment which she did not care to arouse. But it seemed Lawford Tapp had an errand.

"I do not know, Miss Grayling, whether you care to go out in my Merry Andrew now that your friends have arrived," he said. "But if you do, we might go on Thursday."

"Day after to-morrow? Why not?" she replied with alacrity. "Of course I shall be glad to go—as I already assured you. My—er—friends' coming makes no difference." She thought he referred to Aunt Euphemia and the Perritons. "They will not take up so much of my time that I shall have to desert all my other acquaintances."

Lawford cheered up immensely at this statement. Cap'n Amazon had gone into the store at once and now returned with, his box of "private stock two-fors," one of which choice cigars each of the men took.

"Light up! Light up!" he said cordially. "My niece don't mind the smell of tobacker." Cap'n Amazon was much more friendly with Lawford than Louise might have expected him to be. But, of course, hospitality was a form of religion with the Silt brothers. They could neither of them have treated a guest shabbily.

Indeed, under the influence of the cigar and the presence of another listener, the captain expanded. With little urging he related incident after incident of his varied career—stories of stern trial, of dangerous adventure, of grim fights with the ravening sea; peril by shipwreck, by fire, by savages; encounters with whales and sharks, with Malay pirates; voyaging with a hold full of opium-crazed coolie laborers, and of actual mutiny on the hermaphrodite brig, Galatea, when Cap'n Amazon alone of all the afterguard was left alive to fight the treacherous crew and navigate the ship.

Those two hours were memorable—and would remain so in Louise's mind for weeks. Lawford Tapp, too, quite gave himself up to the charm of the old romancer. To watch Cap'n Amazon's dark intent face and his glowing eyes, while he told of these wonders of sea and land, would have thrilled the most sophisticated listener.

"Isn't he a wonder?" murmured Lawford, as Louise accompanied him to the gate and watched him start the automobile engine. "I never heard such a fellow in my life. And good as gold!"

Louise had made up her mind to be distinctly casual with the young man hereafter; but his hearty praise of her uncle warmed her manner toward him. Besides, she had to confess in secret that Lawford was most likable.

She mentioned her aunt's arrival in the neighborhood and he asked, laughing:

"Oh, then shall we have her for our chaperon?"

"Aunt Euphemia? Mercy, no! I have chosen Betty Gallup and believe me, Mr. Tapp, Betty is much to be preferred."

It was odd that Louise had not yet discovered who and what Lawford Tapp was. Yet the girl had talked with few of the neighbors likely to discuss the affairs of the summer residents along The Beaches. And, of course, she asked Cap'n Amazon no questions, for he was not likely to possess the information.

After she had bidden her uncle good-night and retired, thoughts of Lawford Tapp kept her mind alert. She could not settle herself to sleep. With the lamp burning brightly on the stand at the bedside and herself propped with pillows, she opened the old scrapbook found in the storeroom chest and fluttered its pages.

Almost immediately she came upon a story related in the Newport Mercury. It was the supposedly veracious tale of an ancient sea captain who had been a whaler in the old days.

There, almost word for word, was printed the story Cap'n Amazon had told her that evening about the black man and the black dog!



CHAPTER XV

THE UNEXPECTED

The finding of one of Cap'n Amazon's amazing narratives of personal prowess in the old scrapbook shocked Louise Grayling. The mystery of the thing made alert her brain and awoke in the girl vague suspicions that troubled her for hours. Indeed, it was long that night before she could get to sleep.

During these days of acquaintanceship and familiarity with the old sea captain she had learned to love him so well for his good qualities that it was easy for her to forgive his faults. If he "drew the long bow" in relating his adventures, his niece was prepared to excuse the failing.

There was, too, an explanation of this matter, and one not at all improbable. The reporter of the Mercury claimed to have taken down the story of the black man who had fought a shark for the life of his dog just as it fell from the lips of an ancient mariner. This mariner might have been Cap'n Amazon Silt himself. Why not? The captain might have been more modest in relating his personal connection with the incident when talking with the reporter than he had been in relating the story to his niece.

Still, even with this suggested explanation welcomed to her mind, Louise Grayling was puzzled. She went through the entire scrapbook, skimming the stories there related, to learn if any were familiar. But no. She found nothing to suggest any of the other tales Cap'n Amazon had related in her hearing. And it was positive that her uncle had not read this particular story of the black man and the black dog since coming to the store on the Shell Road, for Louise had had possession of the book.

Therefore she was quite as mystified when she fell asleep at dawn as she had been when first her discovery was made. She was half determined to probe for an explanation of the coincidence when she came downstairs to a late breakfast. But no good opportunity presented itself for the broaching of any such inquiry.

She wished to make preparations for the fishing party in the Merry Andrew, and that kept her in the kitchen part of the day. She baked a cake and made filling for sandwiches.

Betty Gallup accepted the invitation to accompany Louise on the sloop without hesitation. She approved of Lawford Tapp. Yet she dropped nothing in speaking of the young man to open Louise's eyes to the fact that he was the son of a multi-millionaire.

The activities of the moving picture company increased on this day; but it was not until the following morning, when Louise went shoreward with the tackle and the smaller lunch basket, that she again saw Mr. Judson Bane to speak to. As she sat upon the thwart of the old skiff where Washy Gallup had mended his net, the handsome leading man of the picture company strolled by.

Bane certainly made a picturesque fisherman, whether he looked much like the native breed or not. An open-air studio had been arranged on the beach below the Bozewell bungalow, and Louise could see a director trying to give a number of actors his idea of what a group of fishermen mending their nets should look like.

"He should engage old Washy Gallup to give color to the group," Louise said to Bane, laughing.

"Anscomb is having his own troubles with that bunch," sighed the leading man. "Some of them never saw a bigger net before than one to catch minnows. Do you sail in this sloop I see coming across from the millionaire's villa, Miss Grayling?"

"Yes," Louise replied. "Mr. Tapp is kind enough to take us fishing."

"You are, then, one of these fortunate creatures," and Bane's sweeping gesture indicated that he referred to the occupants of the cottages set along the bluff above The Beaches, "who toil not, neither do they spin. I fancied you might be one of us. Rather, I've heard that down here."

"That surmise gained coinage when I first arrived at Cardhaven," Louise said, dimpling. "I did nothing to discourage the mistake, and I presume Gusty Durgin still believes I pose before the camera."

"Gusty has aspirations that way herself," chuckled Bane. "She is a character."

"I wonder what kind of screen actress I would make?"

He smiled down at her rather grimly. "The kind the directors call the appealing type, I fancy, Miss Grayling. Though I have no doubt you would do much better than most. Making big eyes at a camera is the limit of art achieved by many of our feminine screen stars. I do not expect to put in a very pleasant summer amid my present surroundings."

"Oh, then you are here for more than one picture."

"Several, if the weather proves propitious. I shall play the fisherman hero, or the villain, until my manager has my new play ready in the fall. Believe me, Miss Grayling, I am not in love with this picture drama. But when one is offered for his resting season half as much again as he can possibly earn during the run of a legitimate Broadway production he must not be blamed for accepting the contract. We all bow to the power of gold."

Louise, whose gaze was fixed upon the approaching sloop, smiled. She was thinking; "All but Lawford Tapp, the philosophic fisherman!"

"I believe," Bane said, with flattery, "that I should delight to play opposite to you, Miss Grayling, rank amateur though you would be. This Anscomb really is a wonderful director and gets surprising results from material that cannot compare with you. I'll speak to him if you say the word. He'd oblige me, I am sure. One of the scripts he has told me about has a part fitted to you."

"Oh, Mr. Bane!" she cried. "I'd have to think about that, I fear. And such a tempting offer! Now, if you said that to Gusty Durgin——"

At the moment Betty Gallup came into view. Masculine in appearance at any time in her man's hat and coat, she was doubly so now. She frankly wore overalls, but had drawn a short skirt over them; and she wore gum boots. Bane stared at this apparition and gasped:

"Is—is it a man—or what?"

"Why, Mr. Bane! That is my chaperon."

"Chaperon! Ye gods and little fishes! Miss Grayling, no matter where you go, or with whom, you are perfectly safe with that as a chaperon."

"How rediculous, Mr. Bane!" the girl cried, laughing. Betty strode through the sand to the spot where they stood. "This is Mr. Bane, Betty," Louise continued, "Mrs. Gallup, Mr. Bane."

The actor swept off his sou'wester with a flourish. Betty eyed him with disfavor.

"So you're one o' them play-actors, be you? Land sakes! And tryin' to look like a fisherman, too! I don't s'pose you know a grommet from the bight of a hawser."

"Guilty as charged," Bane admitted with a chuckle. "But we all must live, Mrs. Gallup."

"Humph!" grunted the old woman. "Are you sure that's so in ev'ry case? There's more useless folks on the Cape now than the Recordin' Angel can well take care on."

"Oh, Betty!" Louise gasped.

But Bane was highly amused. "I'm not at all sure you're not right, Mrs. Gallup. I sometimes feel that if I were a farmer and raised onions, or a fisherman and caught the denizens of the sea, I might feel a deeper respect for myself. As it is, when I work I am only playing."

"Humph!" exploded Betty again. "'Denizens of the sea,' eh? New one on me. I ain't never heard of them fish afore."

The sail of the sloop slatted and then came down with the rattle of new canvas. Having let go the sheet, Lawford ran forward and pitched the anchor over. Then he drew in the skiff that trailed the Merry Andrew, stepped in, and sculled himself ashore, beaching the boat, just as Cap'n Amazon came down from the store with a second basket of supplies.

"Wish I was goin' with ye," he said heartily. "Would, too, if I could shut up shop. But I promised Abe I'd stay by the ship till he come home again."

Louise introduced her uncle to Mr. Bane; but during the bustle of getting into the skiff and pushing off she overlooked the fact that Lawford and the actor were not introduced.

"Bring us home a mess of tautog," Cap'n Amazon shouted. "I sartainly do fancy blackfish when they're cooked right. Bile 'em, an' serve with an egg sauce, is my way o' puttin' 'em on the table."

"That was Cap'n Abe's way, too," muttered Betty.

The cloud on Lawford Tapp's countenance did not lift immediately as he sculled them out to the anchored sloop. Louise saw quickly that his ill humor was for Bane.

"I must keep this young man at a distance," she thought, as she waved her hand to Uncle Amazon and Mr. Bane. "He takes too much for granted, I fear. Perhaps, after all, I should have excused myself from this adventure."

She eyed Lawford covertly as, with swelling muscles and lithe, swinging body, he drove his sculling oar. "But he does look more 'to the manner born'—much more the man, in fact—than that actor!"

Lawford could not for long forget his duty as host, and he was as cheerful and obliging as usual by the time the three had scrambled aboard the Merry Andrew.

Immediately Betty Gallup cast aside her skirt and stood forth untrammeled in the overalls. "Gimme my way and I'd wear 'em doin' housework and makin' my garding," she declared. "Land sakes! I allus did despise women's fooleries."

Louise laughed blithely.

"Why, Betty," she said, "lots of city women who do their own housework don 'knickers' or gymnasium suits to work in. No excuse is needed."

"Humph!" commented the old woman. "I had no idee city women had so much sense. The ones I see down here on the Cape don't show it."

The morning breeze was light but steady. The Merry Andrew was a sweetly sailing boat and Lawford handled her to the open admiration of Betty Gallup. The old woman's comment would have put suspicion in Louise's mind had the girl not been utterly blind to the actual identity of the sloop's owner.

"Humph! you're the only furiner, Lawford Tapp, I ever see who could sail a smack proper. But you got Cape blood in you—that's what 'tis."

"Thank you, Betty," he returned, with the ready smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "That is a compliment indeed."

The surf only moaned to-day over Gull Rocks, for there was little ground swell. The waves heaved in, with an oily, leisurely motion and, it being full sea, merely broke with a streak of foam marking the ugly reef below.

A little to the seaward side of the apex of the reef Betty, at a word from Lawford, cast loose the sheet and then dropped the anchor.

"Mussel beds all about here," explained the young man to his guest. "That means good feeding for the blackfish. Can't catch them anywhere save on a rock bottom, or around old spiles or sunken wrecks. Better let me rig your line, Miss Grayling. You'll need a heavier sinker than that for outside here—ten ounces at least. You see, the tug of the undertow is considerable."

Betty Gallup, looking every whit the "able seaman" now, rigged her own line quickly and opened the bait can.

"Land sakes!" she exclaimed. "Where'd you get scallop bait this time o' year, Lawford? You must be a houn' dog for smellin' 'em out."

"I am," he laughed. "I know that tautog will leave mussels for scallop any time. And we'll have the eyes of the scallops fried for lunch. They're all ready in the cabin."

The pulpy, fat bodies of the scallop—a commercial waste—were difficult to hang upon the short, blunt hooks; but Lawford seemed to have just the knack of it. He showed Louise how to lower the line to the proper depth, advising:

"Remember, you'll only feel a nibble. The tautog is a shy fish. He doesn't swallow hook, line, and sinker like a hungry cod. You must snap him quick when he takes the hook, for his mouth is small and you must get him instantly—or not at all."

Louise found this to be true. Her hooks were "skinned clean" several times before she managed to get inboard her first fish.

She learned, too, why the tackle for tautog has to be so strong. Once hooked, the fish darts straight down under rocks or into crevasses, and sulks there. He comes out of that ambush like a chunk of lead.

The party secured a number of these dainty fish; but to lend variety to the day's haul they got the anchor up after luncheon and ran down to the channels there to chum for snappers. Lawford had brought along rods; for to catch the young and gamey bluefish one must use an entirely different rigging from that used for tautog.

Louise admired the rod Lawford himself used. She knew something about fancy tackle, and this outfit of the young man, she knew, never cost a penny less than a hundred dollars.

"And this sloop, which is his property," she thought, "is another expensive possession. I can see where his money goes—when he has any to spend. He is absolutely improvident. Too bad."

She had to keep reminding herself, it seemed, of Lawford Tapp's most glaring faults. Improvidence and a hopeless leaning toward extravagance were certainly unforgivable blemishes in the character of a young man in the position she believed Lawford held.

The sport of chumming for snappers, even if they hooked more of sluggish fluke than of the gamier fish to tempt which the chopped bait is devoted, was so exciting that Betty, sailing the sloop, overlooked a pregnant cloud that streaked up from the horizon almost like a puff of cannon smoke.

The squall was upon them so suddenly that Louise could not wind in her line in good season. Lawford was quicker; but in getting his tackle inboard he was slow to obey Betty's command:

"Let go that sheet! Want to swamp us, foolin' with that fancy fish rod?"

"Aye, aye, skipper!" he sang out, laughing, and jumped to cast off the line in question just as the sail bulged taut as a drumhead with the striking squall.

There was a "lubber's loop" in the bight of the sheet and as the young man loosed it his arm was caught in this trap. The boom swung viciously outboard and Lawford went with it. He was snatched like some inanimate object over the sloop's rail and, the next instant, plunged beneath the surface of the suddenly foam-streaked sea.



CHAPTER XVI

A TRAGEDY OF ERRORS

Lawford came up as the sloop swept by on her new tack, his smile as broad as ever. He blew loudly and then shouted:

"Going—-too—fast—for—me! Whoa! Back up a little, ladies, and let me climb aboard."

"Well, of all the crazy critters!" the "able seaman" declared. "Stand by with that boathook, Miss Lou, and see if you can harpoon him."

Louise swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to laugh too. To tell the truth, the accident to Lawford Tapp had frightened her dreadfully at the moment it occurred.

Betty Gallup put over the wheel and the Merry Andrew, still under propulsion of the bursting squall, flew about, almost on her heel. Louise, who was shielding her eyes from the flying spray under the sharp of her hand and watching the head and shoulders of Lawford as he plowed through the jumping waves with a great overhand stroke, suddenly shrieked aloud:

"Oh, Betty!"

"What's the matter? Land sakes!"

Both saw the peril threatening the swimmer. The light skiff at the end of the long painter whipped around when the line tautened. As Betty cried out in echo to Louise's wail, the gunnel of the skiff crashed down upon Lawford's head and shoulders.

"Oh! Oh! He's hurt!" cried Louise.

"He's drowned—dead!" ejaculated Betty Gallup. "Here, Miss Lou, you take the wheel——"

But the girl had no intention of letting the old woman go overboard. Betty in her heavy boots would be wellnigh helpless in the choppy sea. If it were possible to rescue Lawford Tapp she would do it herself.

The human mind is a wonderfully constituted—mechanism, may we call it? It receives and registers impressions that are seemingly incoordinate; then of a sudden each cog slips into place and the perfection of a belief, of an opinion, of a desire, even of a most momentous discovery, is attained.

Thus instantly Louise Grayling had a startling revelation, "Handle the boat yourself, Betty!" she commanded. "I am going to get him."

Her skirt was dropped, even as she spoke. She wore "sneaks" to-day instead of high boots, and she kicked them off without unlacing them. Then, poising on the rail for a moment, she dived overboard on a long slant.

She swam under the surface for some fathoms and coming up dashed the water from her eyes to stare about.

The black squall had passed. The sea dimpled in blue and green streaks as before. A few whitecaps only danced about the girl. Where Lawford had gone down——

A round, sleek object—like the head of a seal—bobbed in the agitated water. It was not ten yards away. Had she not been so near she must have overlooked it. He might have sunk again, going down forever, for it was plain the blow he had suffered had deprived Lawford of consciousness.

Louise wasted no breath in shouting, nor moments in looking back at Betty and the sloop. All her life she had been confident in the water. She had learned to ride a surfboard with her father like the natives in Hawaii. A comparatively quiet sea like this held no terrors for Louise Grayling.

She dived in a long curve like a jumping porpoise, and went down after the sinking man. In thirty seconds she had him by the hair, and then beat her way to the surface with her burden.

Lawford's face was dead white; his eyes open and staring. There was a cut upon the side of his head from which blood and water dribbled upon her shoulder as she held him high out of the sea.

There sounded the clash of oars in her ears. How Betty had lowered the jib, thrown over the anchor, and manned the skiff so quickly would always be a mystery to Louise. But the "able seaman" knew this coast as well, at least, as Lawford Tapp. They were just over a shoal, and there was safe anchorage for a small craft.

"Give him to me. Land sakes!" gasped Betty over her head. "I never see no city gal like you, Miss Lou."

Nor had Louise ever seen a woman with so much muscular strength and the knowledge of how to apply it as Betty displayed. She lifted Lawford out of the girl's arms and into the skiff with the dexterity of one trained in hauling in halibut, for Betty had spent her younger years on the Banks with her father.

Louise scrambled into the skiff without assistance. Betty was already at the oars and Louise took the injured head of the man in her lap. He began to struggle back to life again.

"I—I'm all right," he muttered. "Sorry made such a—a fool—of—myself."

"Hush up, you!" snapped Betty. "I'd ought to have seed to this skiff. Then you wouldn't have got battered like you did." A tear ran frankly down Betty's nose and dripped off its end. "If anything really bad had happened to you, Lawford, I'd a-never forgive myself. I thought you was a goner for sure."

"Thanks to you, I'm not, I guess, Betty," he said more cheerfully. He did not know who had jumped overboard to his rescue.

For some reason the girl was suddenly embarrassed by this fact.

The skiff reached the plunging sloop and Louise got inboard and aided Betty to get Lawford over the rail. Then she slipped on her skirt.

Lawford slumped down in the cockpit, saying he was all right but looking all wrong.

"Going to get him back to Tapp Point just as quick as I can," declared the "able seaman" to Louise. "Doctor ought to see that cut."

"Oh, Betty!"

"Now, now, Miss Lou," murmured the old woman with the light of sudden comprehension in her eyes. "Don't take on now! You've been a brave gal so fur."

"And I will keep my courage," Louise said with tremulous smile.

"Go right over there an' hold his head, Miss Lou. Pet him up a leetle bit; 'twon't hurt a mite."

The vivid blush that dyed the girl's cheeks signaled the fact that Betty had guessed more of the truth than Louise cared to have her or anybody know. She shook her head negatively to the keen-eyed old woman; nevertheless she went forward, found one of Lawford's handkerchiefs and bound up his head. The cut did not seem very deep; yet the shock of the blow he had suffered certainly had dulled the young man's comprehension.

"Thank you—thank you," he muttered and laid his head down on his arms again.

Betty rounded the end of the Neck where the lighthouse stood. One of the lightkeepers was on the gallery just under the lamp chamber and had been watching them through his glasses. He waved a congratulatory hand as the Merry Andrew shot along, under the "able seaman's" skillful guidance.

"I'm goin' to put you ashore in the skiff right there by the store, Miss Lou," Betty said.

"Shouldn't I get a doctor and send him over to the Point?"

"They've got a telephone there," Betty told her.

"I—I hope they'll take good care of him."

"They ought to," sniffed Betty. "I'll see to it he's all right, Miss Lou, before I leave him."

"Thank you, Betty," returned the girl, too honest to make any further attempt to deny her deep interest in the man.

When the sail rattled down and Louise tossed over the anchor, Lawford roused a bit. "Sorry the trip turned out so rotten bad, Miss Grayling," he mumbled. "I—I don't feel just right yet."

Louise patted his shoulder. "You poor boy!" she said tenderly. "Don't mind about me. It's you we are worrying about. But I am sure you cannot be seriously injured. Betty will take you directly over to the Point and the folks there will get a doctor for you. Next time we'll have a much nicer fishing trip, Mr. Tapp. Good-bye."

He muttered his adieu and watched her get into the skiff after Betty and the baskets. The "able seaman" rowed quickly to the beach. The sharp eyes of Mr. Bane noted their arrival, and he strode over to the spot where the skiff came in, to help Louise out of the boat and bring the baskets ashore.

"You need a handy man, I see," the actor observed. "What a fine catch you have had—blackfish, snappers, and fluke, eh? I'll carry the baskets up to your uncle's store for you. Fine old man, your uncle, Miss Grayling. And what stories he can tell of his adventures—my word!"

"Come over to-night and tell me how he is, betty, won't you?" the girl whispered to the "able seaman" and the latter, nodding her comprehension, pulled back to the sloop. Neither of them saw that Lawford was watching the little group on shore and that when Bane and the girl turned toward the store the young man looked after them with gloomy visage.

The girl's replies to Bane's observation were most inconsequential. Her mind was upon Lawford and his condition. She was personally uncomfortable, too; for although the sun and wind had dried her hair and her blouse, beneath the dry skirt her clothing was wet.

As they came to the Shell Road the long, gray roadster Louise had seen before came down from town. L'Enfant Terrible was at the wheel while her two older sisters sat in the narrow seat behind. Cecile tossed a saucy word over her shoulder, indicating Louise and Bane, and her older sisters smiled superciliously upon the two pedestrians. Louise was too deeply occupied with thoughts of the injured man to note this by-play.



CHAPTER XVII

THE ODDS AGAINST HIM

"Horrid taste she has, I must say," drawled Marian. Marian was the eldest of the Tapp girls. To tell the truth (but this is strictly in confidence and must go no further!) she had been christened Mary Ann after Israel Tapp's commonplace mother. That, of course, was some time before I. Tapp, the Salt Water Taffy King, had come into his kingdom and assumed the robe and scepter of his present financial position.

"Oh!" ejaculated Cecile. "That's Judson Bane, the Broadway star, she's walking with. I'd like to know him myself."

"You coarse little thing!" drawled Marian.

"And you not out yet!" Prue, the second sister, observed cuttingly. "You're only a child. I wish you'd learn your place and keep it."

"Oh, fudge!" responded L'Enfant Terrible, not deeply impressed by these sisterly admonitions.

Marian was twenty-six—two years Lawford's senior. She was a heavy, lymphatic girl, fast becoming as matronly of figure as her mother. She still bolstered up her belief that she had matrimonial prospects; but the men who wanted to marry her she would not have while those she desired to marry would not have her. Marian Tapp was becoming bored.

Prue was a pretty girl. She was but nineteen. However, she had likewise assumed a bored air after being in society a single season.

"That big actor man will put poor Fordy's nose out of joint with the film lady," Prue said. "Look out for that dog, Cis. It's the Perritons'. If you run over him——"

"Nasty little thing!" grumbled Cecile.

"And the apple of Sue Perriton's eye," drawled Marian. "Be careful what you are about, Cecile. It all lies with the Perritons whether we get into society this season or not."

"And that Mrs. Conroth who is with them," put in Prue. "She is the real thing—the link between the best of New York and Albany society. Old family—away back to the patroons—so old she has to keep moth balls hung in her family tree. My! if mother could once become the familiar friend of miladi Conroth——"

"No such luck," groaned Marian. "After all's said and done, mother can't forget the candy kitchen. She always looks to me, poor dear, as though she had just been surreptitiously licking her fingers."

"We do have the worst luck!" groaned the second sister. "There's that Dot Johnson coming. Mother says daddy insists, and when I. Tapp does put down his foot——Well!"

"We'll put her off on Fordy," suggested, the brighter-witted Cecile. "She rather fancies Ford, I think."

"Dot Johnson!" chorused the older girls, in horror. "Not really?" Marian continued. "The Johnsons are impossible."

"They've got more money than daddy has," said Prue.

"But they have no aspirations—none at all," murmured Marian, in horror. "If Lawford married Dot Johnson it would be almost as bad as his being mixed up with that picture actress."

"For him; not for us," said Prue promptly. "Of course, as far as the Johnsons go, they are too respectable for anything. Poor Fordy!"

"Goodness!" snapped Cecile. "It's not all settled. The banns aren't up."

The girls wheeled into the grounds surrounding the Tapp villa just as Betty Gallup guided the Merry Andrew to the dock and leaped ashore with the mooring rope.

Tapp Point consisted of about five acres of bluff and sand. At great expense the Taffy King had terraced the bluff and had made to grow several blades of grass where none at all had been able to gain root before.

The girls saw the queer-looking Betty Gallup helping their brother out of the sloop.

"Say! something's happened to Ford, I guess," Cecile cried, stopping the car short of the porte-cochere.

"Run down and see," commanded Marian languidly.

But Prue hopped out of the roadster and started down the path immediately. She and Lawford still had a few things in common. Mutual affection was one of them.

"What's happened to him?" she cried. "You're Mrs. Gallup, aren't you?"

"I'm Bet Gallup—yes. You run call up Doc Ambrose from over to Paulmouth. Your brother's got a bad knock on the head."

"And he's been overboard!" gasped Prue.

"I—I'm all right," stammered Lawford. "Let me lie down for a little while. Don't need a doctor."

"You're as wet as a drowned rat," his sister said. "Come on up and get some dry clothes, Ford. I'm sure you're awful kind, Mrs. Gallup. I will telephone for the doctor at once."

"You bet she's kind! Good old soul!" murmured Lawford. "I'd have been six fathoms deep if it hadn't been for Betty."

"She hauled you into the boat, did she?" Prue said in a sympathetic tone. "Well, we won't forget that."

Betty had stepped aboard the sloop again to reef down and make all taut. Her sailor-soul would not allow her to leave the lapstreak in a frowsy condition.

Meanwhile Cecile came flying down from the garage, and between his two sisters Lawford was aided up to the house. Despite the young man's protests, Dr. Ambrose was called and he rattled over in what the jolly medical man termed his "one-horse shay." That rattletrap of a second-hand car was known in every town and hamlet for miles around. Sometimes he got stalled, for the engine of the car was one of the crankiest ever built, and the good physician had to get out and proceed on foot. When this happened the man who owned a horse living nearest to the unredeemed automobile always hitched up and dragged the car home. For Dr. Ambrose was beloved as few men save a physician is ever loved in a country community.

"You got a hard crack and no mistake, young man," the physician said, plastering his patient's head in a workmanlike manner. "But you've a good, solid cranium as I've often told you. Not much to get hurt above the ears—mostly bone all the way through. Not easy to crack, like some of these eggshell heads."

Lawford felt the effects of the blow, however, for the rest of the evening. His father was away and so he had no support against the organized attack of the women of the family. Although it is doubtful if I. Tapp would have sided with his son.

"It really serves you right, Ford, for taking that movie actress sailing," drawled Marian.

"It is a judgment upon him," sighed their mother, wiping her eyes. "Oh, Ford, if you only would settle down and not be so wild!"

"'Wild!' Oh, bluey!" murmured L'Enfant Terrible, who considered her brother a good deal of a tame cat.

"At least," Marian pursued, "you might carry on your flirtation in a less public manner."

"'Flirtation!'" ejaculated Lawford, with a spark of anger—and then settled back on the couch with a groan.

"My goodness me, Ford!" gasped Prue. "You're surely not in earnest?"

"I should hope not," drawled Marian.

"Oh, Ford, my boy——"

"Now, mother, don't turn on the sprinkler again," advised L'Enfant Terrible. "It will do you no good. And, anyway, I guess Ford hasn't any too bright a chance with the Grayling. You ought to have seen that handsome Judson Bane lean over her when they were walking up to Cap'n Abe's. I thought he was going to nibble her ear!"

"Cecile!"

"Horrid thing!" Prue exclaimed. "I don't know where she gets such rude manners."

"That boarding school last winter completely spoiled her," complained the mother. "And I sent her to it because Sue Perriton and Alice Bozewell go there."

"And I had a fine chance to get chummy with them!" snapped Cecile. "They were both seniors."

"But really," Marian went on, "your entanglement with that movie actress is sure to make trouble for us, Ford. You might be a little more considerate. Just as we are getting in with the Perritons. And their guest, Mrs. Conroth, was really very nice to mother this morning on the beach. She has the open sesame to all the society there is on this side of the Atlantic. It's really a wonderful chance for us, Ford."

"And—he's bound—to spoil—it all!" Mrs. Tapp sobbed into an expensive bit of lace.

"You might be a good sport, Fordy, dear," urged Prue.

"Yes, Fordy; don't crab the game," added the vulgar Cecile.

"You know very well," said the elder sister, "how hard we have tried to take our rightful place here at The Beaches. We have the finest home by far; daddy's got the most money of any of them, and let's us spend it, too. And still it's like rolling a barrel up a sand bank. Just a little thing will spoil our whole season here."

"Do, do be sensible, Ford!" begged his mother.

"Sacrifice yourself for the family's good," said Prue.

"Dear Ford," began Mrs. Tapp again, "for my sake—for all our sakes—take thought of what you are doing. This—this actress person cannot be a girl you could introduce to your sisters——"

"No more of that, mother!" exclaimed the young man, patience at last ceasing to be a virtue. "Criticise me if you wish to; but I will hear nothing against Miss Grayling."

"Oh, dear! Now I have offended him again!" sobbed the matron.

"You are too utterly selfish for words!" declared Marian.

"You're a regular pig!" added Prue.

"If you get mixed up with an actress, Fordy, I'll have a fine time when I come out, won't I?" complained Cecile.

"Caesar's ghost!" burst from the lips of the badgered young man. "I wish Betty Gallup had let me drown instead of hauling me inboard this afternoon!"



CHAPTER XVIII

SOMETHING BREAKS

An express wagon, between the shafts of which was a raw-boned gray horse leaning against one shaft as a prop while he dozed, stood before Cap'n Abe's store as Louise and Mr. Judson Bane came up from the shore front. She thanked the actor as he set the heavy baskets on the porch step.

"Those blackfish look so good I long for a fish supper," he said, smiling in open admiration upon her.

Louise was quick to establish a reputation for hospitality. Perhaps it was the Silt blood that influenced her to say: "Wait till I speak to Uncle Amazon, Mr. Bane."

There was a tall gaunt man in overalls and jumper, who, somehow, possessed a family resemblance to the gray horse, leaning against the door frame, much as his beast leaned against the wagon shaft. Perry Baker and the gray horse had traveled so many years together about Paulmouth and Cardhaven that it was not surprising they looked alike.

When Louise mounted the porch steps she could not easily pass the expressman, who was saying, in drawling tones:

"Well, I brought it over, seeing I had a light load. I didn't know what else to do with it. Of course, it was Cap'n Abe give it to me to ship. Let's see, I didn't happen to see you here that night you came, an' I brought the young lady's trunks over, did I?"

"Not as I know on," barked Cap'n Amazon with brevity.

"Funny how we didn't meet then," drawled Perry Baker.

There seemed to be a tenseness to the atmosphere of the old store. Louise saw the usual idlers gathered about the cold stove—Washy Gallup on his nail-keg, his jaw wagging eagerly; Milt Baker and Amiel Perdue side by side with their elbows on the counter; Cap'n Joab Beecher leaning forward on his stick—all watching Cap'n Amazon, it seemed, with strained attention.

It was like a scene set for a play—for the taking of a film, perhaps. The whimsical thought came to Louise that the director had just shouted: "Get set!" and would immediately add: "Action! Camera! Go!"

"Course," Perry Baker drawled, "I sent it to Boston as consigner, myself; so when the chest warn't called for within a reasonable time they shipped it back to me, knowin' I was agent. Funny Cap'n Abe didn't show up for to claim it."

Cap'n Amazon, grim as a gargoyle, leaned upon the counter and stared the expressman out of countenance, saying nothing. Perry shifted uneasily in the doorway. The captain's silence and his stare were becoming irksome to bear.

"Well!" he finally ejaculated, "that's how 'tis. I'd ha' waited till—till Cap'n Abe come home—if he ever does come; but my wife, Huldy, got fidgety. She reads the papers, and she's got it into her head there's something wrong 'bout the old chest. She dreamed 'bout it. An' ye know, when a woman gets to dreamin' she'll drag her anchors, no matter what the bottom is. She says folks have been murdered 'fore now and their bodies crammed into a chest——"

"Why, you long-winded sculpin!" exclaimed Cap'n Amazon, at length goaded to speech. "Bring that chest in and take a reef in your jaw-tackle. I knew a man once't looked nigh enough like you to be your twin; and he was purt nigh a plumb idiot, too."

Louise had never before heard her uncle's voice so sharp. It was plain he had not seen his niece until after Perry Baker turned and clumped out upon the porch, thus giving the girl free entrance to the store. She turned, smiling a little whimsically, and said to Bane:

"The moment is not propitious, I fear. Uncle Amazon seems to be put out about something."

"Don't bother him now, I beg," urged the actor, lifting his hat. "I will call later—if I may."

"Certainly, Mr. Bane," she said with seriousness. "Uncle Amazon and I will both be glad to see you."

The expressman came heavily up the steps with a green chest on his shoulder. It had handles of tarred rope and had plainly seen much service; indeed, it was brother to the box in the storeroom which Louise had found filled with nautical literature.

The girl entered the store ahead of the staggering expressman, but stepped aside for him to precede her, for she wished to beckon to Amiel to come out for the baskets of fish.

"Watch out where you're putting your foot, Perry!" Cap'n Joab suddenly exclaimed.

His warning was too late. Some youngster, eager to peel his banana, had flung its treacherous skin upon the floor. The expressman set his clumsy boot upon it.

"Whee! 'Ware below!" yelled Amiel Perdue.

To recover his footing Perry let go of the chest. It fell to the floor with a mighty crash, landing upon one corner and bursting open. During the long years it had stood in Cap'n Abe's storeroom the wood had suffered dry rot.

"Land o' Liberty an' all han's around!" bawled the irrepressible Milt Baker. "There ain't ho corpse in that dust, for a fac'!"

"What kind of a mess d'ye make that out to be, I want to know?" cackled Washy Gallup.

The hinges had torn away from the rotting wood so that the lid lay wide open. Tumbled out upon the floor were several ancient garments, including a suit of quite unwearable oilskins, and with them at least a wheelbarrow load of bricks!

"Well, I vum!" drawled the expressman, at length recovering speech. "I hope Huldy'll be satisfied."

But Cap'n Joab Beecher was not. He stood up and pointed his stick at the heap of rubbish on the floor and his voice quavered as he shrilly asked:

"Then, where's Cap'n Abe?"

They all turned to stare again at Cap'n Amazon. That hardy mariner seemed to be quite as self-possessed as usual. His grim lips opened and in caustic tone he said:

"You fellers seem to think that I'm Abe Silt's keeper. I ain't. Abe's old enough—and ought to be seaman enough—to look out for Abe Silt. What tomfoolery he packed into that chest is none o' my consarn. I l'arnt years ago that Moses an' them old fellers left the chief commandment out o' the Scriptures. That's 'Mind your own business.' Abe's business ain't mine. Here, you Amiel! clear up that clutter an' let's have no more words about it."

The decisive speech of the master mariner closed the lips of even Cap'n Joab. The latter did not repeat his query about Cap'n Abe but, with a baffled expression on his weather-beaten countenance, departed with Perry Baker.

That a trap had been for Cap'n Amazon, that it had been sprung and failed to catch the master mariner, seemed quite plain to Louise. Betty Gallup's oft-expressed suspicions and Washy Gallup's gossip suddenly impressed the girl. With these vague thoughts was connected in her mind the discovery she had made that one of Cap'n Amazon's thrilling stories was pasted into the old scrapbook. Why she should think of that discovery just now mystified her; but it seemed somehow to dovetail into the enigma.

Cap'n Amazon lifted the flap in the counter for Louise and in his usual kindly tone said:

"Good fishin', Niece Louise? Bring home a mess?"

"Yes, indeed," she told him. "The baskets are outside. Let Amiel bring them around to the back."

"Aye, aye!" returned the captain briskly. "Tautog? We'll have 'em for supper," and let her pass as though nothing extraordinary had occurred.

But to Louise's troubled mind the bursting of the old chest was like the explosion of a bomb in Cap'n Abe's store.

What was the meaning of it all? Why had the chest been filled with bricks and useless garments? And by whom?

If by Cap'n Abe, what was his object in doing such a perfectly incomprehensible thing? He had deliberately, it seemed, shipped a quite useless chest to Boston with no expectation of calling for it at the express office. Then, where had he gone?

Cap'n Joab's query was the one uppermost in Louise Grayling's thought. All these incomprehensible things seemed to lead to that most important question. Had Cap'n Abe gone to sea, or had he not? If not, what had become of him?

And how much more regarding his brother's disappearance did Cap'n Amazon know than the neighbors or herself? In her room Louise sat and faced the problem. She deliberated upon each incident connected with Cap'n Abe's departure as she knew them.

From almost the first moment of her arrival at the store on the Shell Road, the storekeeper had announced the expected arrival of Cap'n Amazon and his own departure for a sea voyage if his brother would undertake the conduct of the store.

The incidents of the night of Cap'n Amazon's coming and of Cap'n Abe's departure seemed reasonable enough. Here had arisen the opportunity long desired by the Shell Road storekeeper. His brother would remain to look out for his business while he could go seafaring. Cap'n Amazon knew just the craft for the storekeeper to sail in, clearing from the port of Boston within a few hours.

There was not much margin of time for Cap'n Abe to make his preparations. Perry Baker was at hand with Louise's trunks, and the storekeeper had sent off his chest, supposedly filled with an outfit for use at sea. Just what he had intended to do with useless clothing and a hod of bricks it was impossible to understand.

Cap'n Abe had come to her bedroom door to bid Louise good-bye, and she had seen him depart in the fog just at dawn. Yet nobody had observed him at the railroad station and he had not called for the chest at the Boston express office.

The chest! That was the apex of the mystery. Never in this world had Cap'n Abe intended to take the chest with him to sea—or wherever else he had it in his mind to go.

Nor was the chest intended to be returned to the store until Cap'n Abe himself came back from his mysterious journey. The fact that Perry Baker had shipped it in his own name instead of that of the owner had brought about this unexpected incident.

Washy Gallup's gossip—his doubt regarding Cap'n Abe's shipping on a sea voyage—now came home to Louise with force. Washy suggested that the storekeeper was afraid of the sea; that in all his years at Cardhaven he had never been known to venture out of the quiet waters of the bay.

To the girl's mind, too, came the remembrance of that talk she had had with Cap'n Abe on the evening of her arrival at the store. Was there something he had said then that explained this mystery?

He had told her of the wreck of the Bravo and the drowning of Captain Joshua Silt, his father, in sight of his mother's window. She had been powerfully affected by that awful tragedy; this could not be doubted.

And the son, Cap'n Abe, a posthumous child, might indeed have come into the world with that horror of the sea which must have filled his poor mother's soul.

"It would explain why Uncle Abram never became a sailor—the only Silt for generations who remained ashore. Yet, he spoke that night as though he loved the sea—or the romance of it, at least," Louise thought.

"Perhaps, too, his own inability to sail to foreign shores and his terror of the sea made him so worship Cap'n Amazon's prowess. For they say he was continually relating stories of his brother's adventures—even more marvelous tales than Cap'n Amazon himself has related.

"Such a misfortune as Cap'n Abe's fear of the sea may easily explain his brother's good-natured scorn of him. Uncle Amazon doesn't say much about him; but I can see he looks upon Cap'n Abe as a weakling.

"But," sighed the girl in conclusion, "even this does not explain the mystery of the chest, or where Cap'n Abe can be hiding. I wonder if Uncle Amazon knows?"



CHAPTER XIX

MUCH ADO

As on previous occasions, Louise Grayling was deterred from putting a searching question to Cap'n Amazon because of his look and manner. The little she had seen of Cap'n Abe assured her that she would have felt no hesitancy in approaching the mild-mannered storekeeper upon any subject.

But the master mariner seemed to be an entirely different personality. The way he had overawed the idlers in the store that afternoon when the old chest was broken open, and his refusal to make any further explanation of Cap'n Abe's absence, pinched out Louise's courage as one might pinch out a candle wick.

That suspicion was rife in the community, and that the story of the strange contents of Cap'n Abe's chest had spread like a prairie fire, Louise was sure. Yet at supper time Cap'n Amazon was as calm and cheerful as usual and completely ignored the accident of the afternoon.

"Hi-mighty likely mess of tautog you caught, Louise," he said, ladling the thick white gravy dotted with crumbly yellow egg yolk upon her plate with lavish hand. "That Lawford Tapp knows where the critters school, if he doesn't know much else."

"Oh, Uncle Amazon! I think he is a very intelligent young man. Only he wastes his time so!"

"He knows enough book l'arnin', I do allow," agreed Cap'n Amazon. "But fritters away his time as you say. They all do that over to Tapp P'int, I cal'late."

"I wonder how it came to be called Tapp Point?" Louise asked, with a suddenly sharpened curiosity.

"'Cause it's belonged to the Tapps since away back,—or, so Cap'n Joab says. That sand heap never was wuth a punched nickel a ton till these city folks began to build along The Beaches."

Louise, in her own mind, immediately constructed another theory about Lawford Tapp, "the fisherman's son." The sandy point had been sold to the builder of the very ornate villa now crowning it, and the proceeds of that sale had paid for the Merry Andrew sloop and the expensive fishing rod and the clothes of superquality which the young man wore.

She shrank, however, from commenting upon this extravagant and spendthrift trait in his character, even to Uncle Amazon. Nor would she have spoken to anybody else upon the subject.

Something had happened to Louise Grayling on this adventurous afternoon—something of which she scarcely dared think, let alone talk!

The grip of fear at her heart when she thought Lawford was drowning had startled her as much as the accident itself. She had seen men in peril before—in deadly peril—without feeling any personal terror for their fate.

In that moment when Lawford was sinking and she was preparing to leap to his aid, Louise had realized this fact. And in her inmost soul she admitted—with a thrill that shook her physically as well as spiritually—that her interest in this Cape Cod fisherman's son was an interest rooted in her inmost being.

The incident of the wrecked sea chest held her attention in only a secondary degree. All through supper she was listening for Betty Gallup's heavy step. She knew she could not sleep that night without knowing how Lawford was.

For the very reason that she felt so deeply regarding it, she shrank from talking with Cap'n Amazon of the accident that had happened to Lawford. She was glad the substitute storekeeper had "gone for'ard" again to attend to customers when Betty came clumping up the back steps.

"He's all right, Miss Lou," said the kindly woman, patting the girl's hand. "I waited to see Doc Ambrose when he come back from the P'int. He says there ain't a thing the matter with him that vinegar an' brown paper won't cure.

"But land sakes! Miss Lou, ain't this an awful thing 'bout your Uncle Abe's chest? That old pirate knows more'n he'd ought to 'bout what's come o' Cap'n Abe, even if they ain't brought it home to him yit."

"Now, Betty, I wish you wouldn't," begged the girl. "Why should you give currency to such foolish gossip?"

"What foolish gossip?" snapped the woman.

"Why, about my Uncle Amazon."

"How d'ye know he's your uncle at all?" demanded Betty. "You never seen him before he come here. You never knowed nothin' 'bout him, so you said, 'fore you come here to Cardhaven."

"But, Betty——"

"Ain't no 'buts' about it!" fiercely declared the "able seaman." "Cap'n Abe's gone—disappeared. We don't know what's become of him. Course, Huldy Baker was a silly to think Cap'n Abe had been murdered and cut up like shark bait and shipped away in that old chest."

"Oh!"

"Yes. 'Cause Perry seen Cap'n Abe himself that night when he took the chest away. That was ridic'lous. But then, Huldy Baker ain't got right good sense, nor never had.

"But it stands to reason Cap'n Abe had no intent of shipping aboard any craft with sich dunnage in his chest as they say was in it."

"No-o. I suppose that is so," admitted Louise.

"Then, what's become of the poor man?" Betty ejaculated.

"Why, nobody seems to know. Not even Uncle Amazon."

"Have you axed him?" demanded the other bluntly.

"No. I haven't done that."

"Humph!" was the rejoinder. "You're just as much afeared on him as the rest on us. You take it from me, Miss Lou, he's been a hard man on his own quarter-deck. He ain't no more like Cap'n Abe than buttermilk's like tartaric acid.

"Cap'n Abe warn't no seafarin' man," pursued Betty, "though he had the lingo on his tongue and 'peared as salt as a dried pollock. It's in my mind that he wouldn't never re'lly go to sea—'nless he was egged on to it."

Here it was again! That same doubt as expressed by Washy Gallup—the suggestion that Cap'n Abe Silt possessed an inborn fear of the sea that he had never openly confessed.

"Why do you say that, Betty?" Louise hesitatingly asked the old woman.

"'Cause I've knowed Cap'n Abe for more'n twenty year, and in all that endurin' time he's stuck as close to shore as a fiddler. With all his bold talk about ships and sailin', I tell you he warn't a seafarin' man."

"But what has Uncle Amazon to do with the mystery of his brother's absence?" demanded Louise.

"Humph! If he is Cap'n Abe's brother. Now, now, you don't know no more about this old pirate than I do, Miss Lou. He influenced Cap'n Abe somehow, or someway, so't he cut his hawser and drifted out o' soundings—that's sure! Here this feller callin' himself Am'zon Silt has got the store an' all it holds, an' Cap'n Abe's money, and ev'rything."

"Oh, Betty, how foolishly you talk," sighed the girl.

"Humph! Mebbe. And then again, mebbe it ain't foolish. Them men to-day thought they could scare that old pirate into admittin' something if they sprung Cap'n Abe's chest on him. Oh, I knowed they was goin' to do it," admitted Betty.

"Course, they had no idee what was in the chest. Bustin' it open was an accident. Perry Baker's as clumsy as a cow. But you see, Miss Lou, just how cool that ol' pirate took it all. Washy was tellin' me. He just browbeat 'em an' left 'em with all their canvas slattin'.

"Oh, you can't tell me! That old pirate's handled a crew without no tongs, you may lay to that! And what he's done to poor old Cap'n Abe——"

She went away shaking a sorrowful head and without finishing her sentence. Louise was unable to shake off the burden of doubt of Cap'n Amazon's character and good intentions. She felt that she could not spend the long evening in his company, and bidding him good-night through the open store door she retired to the upper floor.

She felt that sleep was far from her eyelids on this night; therefore she lit a candle and went into the storeroom to get something to read. She selected a much battered volume, printed in an early year of the nineteenth century, its title being:

LANDSMEN'S TALES: Seafaring Yarns of a Lubber.

Louise became enthralled by the narratives of perilous adventure and odd happenings on shipboard which the author claimed to have himself observed. She read for an hour or more, while the sounds in the store below gradually ceased and she heard Cap'n Amazon close and lock the front door for the night.

Silence below. Outside the lap, lap, lap of the waves on the strand and the rising moan of the surf over Gulf Rocks.

Louise turned a page. She plunged into another yarn. Breathlessly and, almost fearfully she read it to the end—the very story of the murdered albatross and the sailors' superstitious belief in the bird's bad influence, as she had heard Cap'n Amazon relate it to Aunt Euphemia Conroth.

She laid down the book at last in amazement and confusion. There was no doubt now of Cap'n Amazon's mendacity. This book of nautical tales had been written and printed long before Amazon Silt was born!

And if the falseness of his wild narratives was established, was it a far cry to Betty Gallup's suspicions and accusations? What and who was this man, who called himself Amazon Silt who had taken Cap'n Abe's place in the store on the Shell Road?

Louise lay with wide-open eyes for a long time. Then she crept out of bed and turned the key in the lock of her door—the first time she had thought to do such a thing since her arrival at Cardhaven.



CHAPTER XX

THE SUN WORSHIPERS

"Them movin' picture people are hoppin' about The Beaches like sandpipers," observed Cap'n Amazon at the breakfast table. "And I opine they air pretty average useless, too. They were hurrahin' around all day yest'day while you was out fishin'. Want to take a picture of Abe's old store here. Dunno what to do about it."

Louise was too much disturbed by her discoveries of overnight to give much attention to this subject.

"It's Abe's store, you see," went on Cap'n Amazon. "Dunno how he'd feel 'bout havin' it took in a picture and showed all over the country. It needs a coat o' paint hi-mighty bad. Ought to be fixed up some 'fore havin' its picture took—don't ye think so, Niece Louise?"

The girl awoke to the matter sufficiently to advise him:

"The lack of paint will not show in the picture, Uncle Amazon. And I suppose they want the store for a location just because it is weather-beaten and old-fashioned."

"I want to know! Well, now, if I was in the photograftin' business, seems t' me I'd pick out the nice-lookin' places to make pictures of. I knowed a feller once that made a business of takin' photografts in furin' parts. He sailed with me when I was master of the Blue Sparrow—clipper built she was, an' a spankin' fine craft. We——"

"Oh, Uncle Amazon!" Louise cried, rising from, the table suddenly, "you'll have to excuse me. I—I forgot something upstairs. Yes—I've finished my breakfast. Betty can clear off."

She fairly ran away from the table. It seemed to her as though she could not sit and listen to another of his preposterous stories. It would be on the tip of her tongue to declare her disbelief in his accuracy. How and where he had gained access to Cap'n Abe's store of nautical romances she could not imagine; but she was convinced that many, if not all, of his supposedly personal adventures were entirely fictitious in so far as his own part in them was concerned.

She put on her hat and went out of the back door in order to escape further intercourse with Cap'n Amazon for the present. On the shore she found the spot below the Bozewell bungalow a busy scene. This was a perfect day for "the sun worshipers," as somebody has dubbed motion picture people. Director Anscomb was evidently planning to secure several scenes and the entire company was on hand.

Louise saw that there were a number of spectators besides herself—some from the town, but mostly young folk from the cottages along The Beaches.

Lawford Tapp was present, and she waved her hand to him, yet preserving an air of merely good comradeship. She was glad that he did not know that it was she who had leaped to his rescue the day before. Considering the nature of the feeling she had for him, into the knowledge of which his peril had surprised her, the girl could not endure any intimate conversation with Lawford. Not just then, at least.

Tapp was in the midst of a group of girls, and she remarked his ease of manner. She did not wonder at it, for he was a gentleman by instinct no matter what his social level might be. Three of the girls were those Louise Grayling believed to be daughters of Lawford's employer.

She saw that he was breaking away from the group with the intention of coming to her. L'Enfant Terrible said something to him and laughed shrilly. She saw Lawford's cheek redden.

So Louise welcomed the approach of Mr. Bane, who chanced at the moment to be idle.

"Now you will see us grinding them out, Miss Grayling," the actor said.

Louise broke into a series of questions regarding the taking of the pictures. Her evident interest in the big leading man halted Lawford's approach. Besides, Miss Louder, who had evidently been introduced to the Taffy King's son, attached herself to him.

She was a pretty girl despite the layers of grease paint necessary to accentuate the lights and shadows of her piquant face. Her manner with men was free without being bold. With a big parasol over her shoulder, she adapted her step to Lawford's and they strolled nearer.

Bane was speaking of the script he had previously mentioned as containing a part eminently fitted for Louise. As Lawford and Miss Louder passed he said:

"I am sure you can do well in that part, Miss Grayling. It is exactly your style."

Had Lawford any previous reason for doubting Louise Grayling's connection with the moving picture industry this overheard remark would have lulled such a doubt to sleep.

The young man realized well enough that Louise was a very different girl from the blithe young woman at his side. But how could he make I. Tapp see it?

Money was not everything in the world; Lawford Tapp was far from thinking it was. He had always considered it of much less importance than the things one could exchange it for.

However, never having felt the necessity for working for mere pelf, and being untrained for any form of industry whatsoever, his father's threat of disowning him loomed a serious menace to the young man.

Not for himself did Lawford fear. He felt warm blood in his veins, vigor in his muscles, a keen edge to his nerves. He could work—preferably with his hands. He realized quite fully his limitation of brain power.

But what right had he to ask any girl to share his lot—especially a girl like Louise Grayling, who he supposed won a sufficient livelihood in a profession the emoluments of which must be far greater than those of any trade he might seek to follow?

He saw now that after his somewhat desultory college course, his months of loafing about on sea and shore had actually unfitted him for concentration upon any ordinary work. And he was not sanguine enough to expect an extraordinary situation to come his way.

Then, too, the young man realized that Louise Grayling had not given him the least encouragement to lead him to believe that she thought of him at all. At this moment her preference for Bane's society seemed marked. Already Cecile had rasped Lawford regarding the leading man's attentions to Louise.

Lawford could not face the taunting glances of Marian and Prue. They had come down to the beach on this particular morning he felt sure to comment—and not kindly—upon Louise Grayling. He hoped that she was not included in the director's plans for the day, and he was glad to see that she had no make-up on, as had these other young women.

So he strolled on grimly with Miss Louder, who would not be called for work for an hour. But the young man heard little of her chatter.

The tide was at the ebb and the two walked on at the edge of the splashing surf, where the strand was almost as firm as a cement walk. The curve of the beach took them toward the lighthouse and here, approaching with bucket and clam hoe along the flats, was the very lightkeeper who had watched the Merry Andrew and her crew the day, before when Lawford met with his accident.

"There ye be, Mr. Lawford," crowed the man, "as chipper as a sandpiper. But I swanny, I didn't ever expect t' hail ye again this side o' Jordan, one spell yest'day."

"You had your glass on us, did you?" Lawford said languidly.

"I did, young man—I did. An' when that bobbin' skiff walloped ye on the side of the head I never 'spected t' see you come up again. If it hadn't been for this little lady who———Shucks, now! This ain't her 'tall, is it?"

"Oh, Mr. Tapp, were you in a boating accident yesterday?" cried Miss Louder.

"I was overboard—yes," responded Lawford, but rather blankly, for he was startled by the lightkeeper's statement. "What do you mean, Jonas?" to the lightkeeper. "Didn't Betty Gallup haul me inboard?"

"Bet Gallup—nawthin'!" exploded Jonas with disgust. "She handled that sloop o' yourn all right. I give her credit for that. But 'twas that there gal stayin' at Cap'n Abe's. Ye had her out with ye, eh?"

"Miss Grayling? Certainly."

"She's some gal, even if she is city bred," was the lightkeeper's enthusiastic observation. "An' quick! My soul! Ye'd ought to seen her kick off her skirt an' shoes an' dive after ye! I swanny, she was a sight!"

"I should think she would have been!" gasped Miss Louder with some scorn. "Goodness me, she must be a regular stunt actress!" and she laughed shrilly.

But Lawford gave her small attention. "Jonas, do you mean that?" he asked. "I thought it was Betty who saved me. Why, dad said this morning he was going to send the old woman a check. He doesn't much approve of me," and the heir of the Taffy King smiled rather grimly, "but as I'm the last Tapp——"

"He's glad ye didn't git done for com-pletely, heh?" suggested Jonas, and giggled. "I wouldn't for a minute stand in the way of Bet Gallup's gittin' what's due her. She did pick ye both up, Lawford. But, land sakes! ye'd been six fathoms down, all right, if it hadn't been for that gal at Cap'n Abe's."

"I—I had no idea of it. I never even thanked her," muttered Lawford. "What can she think of me?"

But not even Miss Louder heard this. She realized, however, that the young man who she had been told was "the greatest catch at The Beaches" was much distrait and that her conversation seemed not to interest him at all.

They went back toward the scene of the film activities. It was the hour of the usual promenade on the sands. Everybody in the summer colony appeared on the beach while the walking along the water's edge was fine. This promenade hour was even more popular than the bathing hour which was, of, course, at high tide.

Groups of women, young and old, strolled under gay parasols, or camped on the sands to chat. Brilliantly striped marquees were set up below some of the cottages, in which tea and other refreshments were served. The younger people fluttered about, talking and laughing, much like a flock of Mother Carey's chickens before a storm.

There were several wagons over from the Haven, in which the small-fry summer visitors arrived and joined their more aristocratic neighbors. The wagons stopped upon the Shell Road and the passengers climbed down to the beach between two of the larger cottages.

The people at The Beaches had tried on several occasions to inclose the stretch of shore below their summer homes, and to make it a private beach. But even the most acquisitive of the town councilmen (and there were several of the fraternity of the Itching Palm in the council) dared not establish such a precedent. The right of the public to the shore at tide-water could not safely be ignored in a community of fishermen and clam diggers.

So the shore on this morning had become a gay scene, with the interest centering on the open air studio of the film company. Lawford saw Louise walking on alone along the edge of the water. Bane had been called into conference by the director.

Lawford could not well hasten his steps and desert Miss Louder, but he desired strongly to do so. And ere the film actress lingeringly left him to rejoin her company, Louise was some distance in advance.

His sisters were near her. Lawford could see them look at her most superciliously, and the saucy Cecile said something that made Prue laugh aloud.

Just beyond the Tapp girls was approaching a group of women and men. Lawford recognized them as the Perritons and their friends. Lawford had no particular interest in the summer crowd himself; but he knew the Perritons were influential people in the social world.

With them was a majestic person the young man had never seen before. Undoubtedly the "Lady from Poughkeepsie." Her pink countenance and beautifully dressed gray hair showed to excellent advantage under the black and white parasol she carried.

She stepped eagerly before the party, calling:

"Louise!"

Louise Grayling raised her head and waved a welcoming hand.

"What brings you forth so early in the morning, auntie?" she asked, her voice ringing clearly across the sands.

There were at least four dumfounded spectators of this meeting, and they were all named Tapp.

Lawford stood rooted to the sands, feeling quite as though the universe had fallen into chaos. It was only L'Enfant Terrible who found speech.

"Oh, my!" she cried. "What a mistake! The movie queen turns out to be some pumpkins!"



CHAPTER XXI

DISCOVERIES

Louise, knowing Aunt Euphemia so well, was immediately aware that the haughty lady had something more than ordinarily unpleasant to communicate. It was nothing about Uncle Amazon and the Shell Road store; some other wind of mischance had ruffled her soul.

But the girl ignored Aunt Euphemia's signals for several minutes; until she made herself, indeed, more familiar with the manner and personal attributes of these new acquaintances. There was a Miss Perriton of about her own age whom she liked at first sight. Two or three men of the party were clean-cut and attractive fellows. Despite the fact that their cottage had been so recently opened for the season, the Perritons had already assembled a considerable house party.

"Louise, I wish to talk to you," at last said Mrs. Conroth grimly.

"True," sighed her niece. "And how extremely exact you always are in your use of the language, auntie. You never wish to talk with me. You will do all the talking as usual, I fear."

"You are inclined to be saucy," bruskly rejoined Aunt Euphemia. "As your father is away I feel more deeply my responsibility in this matter. You are a wayward girl—you always have been."

"You don't expect me to agree with you on that point, do you, auntie?" Louise asked sweetly.

Mrs. Conroth ignored the retort, continuing: "I am not amazed, after seeing your surroundings at the Silt place, that you should become familiar with these common longshore characters. But this that I have just learned—only this forenoon in fact—astonishes me beyond measure; it does, indeed!"

"Let me be astonished, too, auntie. I love a surprise," drawled her niece.

"Where were you yesterday?" demanded Aunt Euphemia sharply.

Louise at once thought she knew what was coming. She smiled as she replied: "Out fishing."

"And with whom, may I ask?"

"With Betty Gallup, Uncle Abram's housekeeper."

"But the man?"

"Oh! Mr. Tapp, you mean? A very pleasant young man, auntie."

"That is what I was told, Louise," her aunt said mournfully. "With young Tapp. And you have been seen with him frequently. It is being remarked by the whole colony. Of course, you can mean nothing by this intimacy. It arises from your thoughtlessness, I presume. You must understand that he is not—er——Well, the Tapps are not of our set, Louise."

"My goodness, no!" laughed the girl cheerfully. "The Tapps are real Cape Codders, I believe."

Aunt Euphemia raised her eyebrows and her lorgnette together. "I do not understand you, I fear. What the Tapps are by blood, I do not know. But they are not in society at all—not at all!"

"Not in society?" repeated Louise, puzzled indeed.

"Scarcely. Of course, as Mrs. Perriton says, the way the cottagers are situated here at The Beaches, the Tapps must be treated with a certain friendliness. That quite impossible 'I. Tapp,' as he advertises himself, owns all the Point and might easily make it very disagreeable for the rest of the colony if he so chose."

She stopped because of the expression on her niece's countenance.

"What do you mean?" Louise asked. "Who—who are these Tapps?"

"My dear child! Didn't you know? Was I blaming you for a fault of which you were not intentionally guilty? See how wrong you are to go unwarned and unaccompanied to strange places and into strange company. I thought you were merely having a mild flirtation with that young man in the full light of understanding."

Louise controlled her voice and her countenance with an effort. "Tell me, Aunt Euphemia," she repeated, "just who Lawford Tapp is?"

"His father is a manufacturer of cheap candies. He is advertised far and wide as 'I. Tapp, the Salt Water Taffy King.' Fancy! I presume you are quite right; they probably were nothing more than clam diggers originally. The wife and daughters are extremely raw; no other word expresses it. And that house! Have you seen it close to? There was never anything quite so awful built outside an architect's nightmare."

"They own Tapp Point? That is Lawford's home? Those girls are his sisters?" Louise murmured almost breathlessly.

"Whom did you take that young man to be, Louise?"

"A fisherman's son," confessed her niece, in a very small voice. And at that Aunt Euphemia all but fainted.

But Louise would say nothing more—just then. On the approach of some of her friends, Mrs. Conroth was forced to put a cap upon her vexation, and bid her niece good-day as sweetly as though she had never dreamed of boxing her ears.

Louise climbed the nearest stairs to the summit of the bluff. She felt she could not meet Lawford at this time, and he was between her and the moving picture actors.

Within the past few hours several things that had seemed stable in Louise Grayling's life had been shaken.

She had accepted in the very first of her acquaintanceship with Lawford Tapp the supposition that his social position was quite inferior to her own. She was too broadly democratic to hold that as an insurmountable barrier between them.

Her disapproval of the young man grew out of her belief in his identity as a mere "hired man" of the wealthy owner of the villa on the Point. She had considered that a man who was so intelligent and well educated and at the same time so unambitious was lacking in those attributes of character necessary to make him a success in life.

His love for the open—for the sea and shore and all that pertained to them—coincided exactly with Louise's own aspirations. She considered it all right that her father and herself spent much of their time as Lawford spent his. Only, daddy-prof often added to the sum-total of human knowledge by his investigations, and sometimes added to their financial investments through his work as well.

Until now she had considered Lawford Tapp's tendencies toward living such an irresponsible existence as all wrong—for him. The rather exciting information she had just gained changed her mental attitude toward the young man entirely.

Louise gave no consideration whatsoever to Aunt Euphemia's snobbish stand in the matter of Lawford's social position. Professor Grayling had laughingly said that Euphemia chose to ignore the family's small beginnings in America. True, the English Graylings possessed a crest and a pedigree as long as the moral law. But in America the family had begun by being small tradespeople and farmers.

Of course, Louise considered, Aunt Euphemia would be very unpleasant and bothersome about this matter. Louise had hoped to escape all that for the summer by fleeing to Cap'n Abe's store at Cardhaven.

However (and the girl's lips set firmly) she was determined to take her own gait—to stand upon her own opinion—to refuse to be swerved from her chosen course by any consideration. Lawford Tapp was in a financial situation to spend his time in the improvement of his body and mind without regard to money considerations. Louise foresaw that they were going to have a delightful time together along the shore here, until daddy-prof came home in the fall. And then——

She saw no such cloud upon the horizon as Lawford saw. Louise acknowledged the existence of nothing—not even Aunt Euphemia's opposition—which could abate the happiness she believed within her grasp.

She admitted that her interest in Lawford had risen far above the mark of mere friendly feeling. When she had seen him sinking the day before, and in peril of his life, she knew beyond peradventure that his well-being and safety meant more to her than anything else in the world.

Now she was only anxious to have him learn that she instead of Betty had leaped into the sea after him. She would avoid him no more. Only she did not wish to meet him there on the beach before all those idlers. Louise feared that if she did so, she would betray her happiness. She thrilled with it—she was obsessed with the thought that there was nothing, after all, to separate Lawford and herself!

Yet the day passed without his coming to the store on the Shell Road. Louise still felt some disturbance of mind regarding Cap'n Amazon. She kept away from him as much as possible, for she feared that she might be tempted to blurt out just what she thought of his ridiculous stories.

She did not like to hear Betty Gallup utter her diatribes against the master mariner; although in secret she was inclined to accept as true many of the "able seaman's" strictures upon Cap'n Amazon's character.

It was really hard when she was in his presence to think of him as an audacious prevaricator—and perhaps worse. He was so kindly in his manner and speech to her. His brisk consideration for her comfort at all times—his wistful glances for Jerry, the ancient canary, and the tenderness he showed the bird—even his desire to placate Diddimus, the tortoise-shell cat—all these things withstood the growing ill-opinion being fostered in Louise Grayling's mind. Who and what was this mysterious person calling himself Cap'n Amazon Silt?

She had, too, a desire to know just how many of those weird stories he told were filched from Cap'n Abe's accumulation of nautical literature. When Cap'n Amazon had gained access to the chest of books Louise could not imagine; but the fact remained that he had at least two of the stories pat.

Louise had promised to spend the evening at the Perritons, and did so; but she returned to Cap'n Abe's store early and did not invite her escort in, although he was a youth eager to taste the novelty of being intimate with "one of these old Cape Codders," as he expressed it.

"No," she told young Malcolm Standish firmly. "Uncle Amazon is not to be made a peepshow of by the idle rich of The Beaches. Besides, from your own name, you should be a descendant of Miles Standish, and blood relation to these Cape Codders yourself. And Uncle Amazon and Uncle Abram are fine old gentlemen." She said it boldly, whether she could believe it about Cap'n Amazon or not. "I will not play showman."

"Oh, say! Ford Tapp comes here. I saw his car standing outside the other evening."

"Mr. Tapp," Louise explained calmly, "comes in the right spirit. He is a friend of the—ahem—family. He is well known to Cap'n Abe who owns the store and has made himself acquainted with Cap'n Amazon over the counter."

"And how has he made himself so solid with you, Miss Grayling?" Standish asked impudently.

"By his gentlemanly behavior, and because he knows a deal more about boat-sailing and the shores than I know," she retorted demurely.

"Leave it to me!" exclaimed Malcolm Standish. "I am going to learn navigation and fishology at once."

"But—don't you think you may be too late?" she asked him, running up the steps. "Good-night, Mr. Standish!"

Upon going indoors she did not find Cap'n Amazon. The lamp was burning in the living-room, but he was not there and the store was dark. Louise mounted the stairs, rather glad of his absence; but when she came to the top of the flight she saw the lamplight streaming through the open door of her uncle's bedroom. Diddimus, with waving tail, was just advancing into the "cabin," as Cap'n Amazon called the chamber he occupied.

Knowing that he particularly objected to having any of his possessions disturbed, and fearing that Diddimus might do some mischief there, Louise followed the tortoise-shell, calling to him:

"Come out of there! Come out instantly, Diddimus! What do you mean by venturing in where we are all forbidden to enter? Don't you know, Diddimus, that only fools dare venture where angels fear to tread? Scat!"

Something on the washstand caught Louise's glance. In the bottom of the washbowl was the stain of a dark brown liquid. Beside it stood a bottle the label of which she could read from the doorway.

She caught her breath, standing for half a minute as though entranced. Diddimus, hearing a distant footstep, and evidently suspecting it, whisked past Louise out of the room.

There were other articles on the washstand that claimed the girl's notice; but it was to the bottle labeled "Walnut Stain" that her gaze returned. She crept away to her own room, lit her lamp, and did not even see Cap'n Amazon Silt again that night.



CHAPTER XXII

SHOCKING NEWS

"Ford Tapp was here last night," Cap'n Amazon told Louise at the breakfast table. "I cal'late he was lookin' for you, though he didn't just up an' say so. Seemed worried like for fear't you wouldn't have a good opinion of him."

"Mercy! what has he done?" cried the girl laughing, for even the sound of Lawford's name made her glad.

"Seems it's what he ain't done. What's all this 'bout your jumpin' overboard t'other day and savin' him from drownin'?" and the mariner fairly beamed upon her.

"Oh, uncle, you mustn't believe everything you hear!"

"No? But Bet Gallup says 'tis so. You air a hi-mighty plucky girl, I guess. I allus have thought so—and so did Abe. But I kind of feel as though I'm sort o' responsible for your safety an' well-bein' while you air here, and I can't countenance no such actions."

"Now, uncle!"

"Fellers like Ford Tapp air as plenty as horse-briers in a sand lot; but girls like you ain't made often, I cal'late. Next time that feller has to be rescued, you let Bet Gallup do it."

She knew Cap'n Amazon well enough now to see that his roughness was assumed. His eyes were moist as his gaze rested on her face, and he blew his nose noisily at the end of his speech.

"You take keer o' yourself, Louise," he added huskily. "If anything should happen to you, what—what would Abe say?"

The depth of his feeling for her—so plainly and so unexpectedly displayed—halted Louise in her already formed intention. She had arisen on this morning, determined to "have it out" with Cap'n Amazon Silt. On several points she wished to be enlightened—felt that she had a right to demand an explanation.

For she was quite positive that Cap'n Amazon was not at all what he claimed to be. His actual personality was as yet a mystery to her; but she was positive on this point: He was not Captain Amazon Silt, master mariner and rover of the seas. He was an entirely different person, and Louise desired to know what he meant by this masquerade.

His seamanship, his speech, his masterful manner, were assumed. And in the matter of his related adventures the girl was confident that they were mere repetitions of what he had read.

Now Louise suddenly remembered how Cap'n Abe had welcomed her here at the old store, and how cheerfully and tenderly this piratical looking substitute for the storekeeper had assumed her care. No relative or friend could have been kinder to her than Cap'n Amazon.

How could she, then, stand before him and say: "Cap'n Amazon, you are an impostor. You have assumed a character that is not your own. You tell awful stories about adventures that never befell you. What do you mean by it all? And, in conclusion and above all, Where is Cap'n Abe?"

This had been Louise's intention when she came downstairs on this morning. The nagging of Betty Gallup, the gossip of the other neighbors, the wild suspicions whispered from lip to lip did not influence her so much. It was what she had herself discovered the evening before in the captain's "cabin" that urged her on.

Now Cap'n Amazon's display of tenderness "took all the wind out of her sails," as Betty Gallup would have said.

Louise watched him stirring about the living-room, chirruping to old Jerry and thrusting his finger into the cage for the bird to hop upon it, and finally shuffling off into the store. She hesitatingly followed him. She desired to speak, but could not easily do so. And now Cap'n Joab Beecher was before her.

Amiel Perdue had been uptown and brought down the early mail, of which the most important piece was always the Boston morning paper. Cap'n Joab had helped himself to this and was already unfolding it.

"What's in the Globe paper, Joab?" asked Cap'n Amazon. "You millionaires 'round here git more time to read it than ever I do, I vum!"

"It don't cost you nothin' to have us read it," said Cap'n Joab easily. "The news is all here arter we git through."

"Uh-huh! I s'pose so. I'd ought to thank ye, I don't dispute, for keepin' the paper from feelin' lonesome.

"I dunno why Abe takes it, anyway, 'cept to foller the sailin's and arrivals at the port o' Boston—'nless he finds more time to read than ever I do. I ain't ever been so busy in my life as I be in this store—'nless it was when I shipped a menagerie for a feller at a Dutch Guinea port and his monkeys broke out o' their cages when we was two days at sea and they tried to run the ship.

"That was some v'y'ge, as the feller said," continued Cap'n Amazon, getting well under way as he lit his after-breakfast pipe. "Them monkeys kep' all the crew on the jump and the afterguard scurcely got a meal in peace, I was——"

"Belay there!" advised Cap'n Joab, with disgust. "Save that yarn for the dog watch. What was it ye said that craft was named Cap'n Abe sailed in?"

Cap'n Amazon stopped in his story-telling and was silent for an instant. Louise, who had stood at the inner doorway listening, turned to go, when she heard the substitute storekeeper finally say:

"Curlew, out o' Boston."

The name caught the girl's instant attention and she felt suddenly apprehensive.

"Here's news o' her," Cap'n Joab said in a hushed voice. "And it ain't good news, Cap'n Silt."

"What d'ye mean?" asked the latter.

"Report from Fayal. A Portugee fisherman's picked up and brought in a boat with 'Curlew' painted on her stern, and he saw spars and wreckage driftin' near the empty boat. There's been a hurricane out there. It—it looks bad, Cap'n Silt."

Before the latter could speak again Louise was at his side and had seized his tattooed arm.

"Uncle Amazon!" she gasped. "Not the Curlew? Didn't I tell you before? That is the schooner daddy-prof's party sailed upon. Can there be two Curlews?"

"My soul and body!" exclaimed Cap'n Joab.

It was Cap'n Amazon who kept his head.

"Not likely to be two craft of the same name and register—no, my dear," he said, patting her hand. "But don't take this so much to heart. It's only rumor. A dozen things might have happened to set that boat adrift. Ain't that so, Cap'n Joab?"

Cap'n Joab swallowed hard and nodded; but his wind-bitten face displayed much distress. "I had no idee the gal's father was aboard that schooner with Cap'n Abe."

"Why, sure! I forgot it for a minute," Cap'n Amazon said cheerfully. "There, there, my dear. Don't take on so. Abe's with your father, if so be anything has happened the Curlew; and Abe'll take keer o' him. Sure he will! Ain't he a Silt? And lemme tell you a Silt never backed down when trouble riz up to face him. No, sir!"

"But if they have been wrecked?" groaned Louise. "Both father and Uncle Abram. What shall we do about it, Uncle Amazon?"

In this moment of trouble she clung to the master mariner as her single recourse. And impostor or no, he who called himself Amazon Silt did not fail her.

"There ain't nothing much we can rightly do at this minute, Niece Louise," he told her firmly, still patting her morsel of a hand in his huge one. "We'll watch the noospapers and I'll send a telegraph dispatch to the ship news office in N'York and git just the latest word there is 'bout the Curlew.

"You be brave, girl—you be brave. Abe an' Professor Grayling being together, o' course they'll get along all right. One'll help t'other. Two pullin' on the sheet can allus h'ist the sail quicker than one. Keep your heart up, Louise."

She looked at him strangely for a moment. The tears frankly standing in his eyes, the quivering muscles of his face, his expression of keen sorrow for her fears—all impressed her. She suddenly kissed him in gratitude, impostor though she knew him to be, and then ran away. Cap'n Joab hissed across the counter:

"Ye don't know that Cap'n Abe's on that there craft, Am'zon Silt!"

"Well, if I don't—an' if you don't—don't lemme hear you makin' any cracks about it 'round this store so't she'll hear ye," growled Cap'n Amazon, boring into the very soul of the flustered Joab with his fierce gaze.

Louise did not hear the expression of these doubts; but she suffered uncertainties in her own mind. She longed to talk with somebody to whom she could tell all that was in her thoughts. Aunt Euphemia was out of the question, of course; although she must reveal to her the possible peril menacing Professor Grayling. Betty Gallup could not be trusted, Louise knew. And the day dragged by its limping hours without Lawford Tapp's coming near the store on the Shell Road.

This last Louise could not understand. But there was good reason for Lawford's effacing himself at this time. In the empire of the Taffy King there was revolution, and this trouble dated from the hour on the previous morning when Louise had met and greeted Aunt Euphemia on the beach.

The Tapp sisters may have been purse-proud and a little vulgar—from Aunt Euphemia's point of view, at least—but they did not lack acumen. They had seen and heard the greeting of Louise by the Ferritons and the extremely haughty Lady from Poughkeepsie, and knew that Louise must be "a somebody."

Cecile, young and bold enough to be direct, was not long in making discoveries. With a rather blank expression of countenance L'Enfant Terrible, for once almost speechless, beckoned her sisters to one side.

"Pestiferous infant," drawled Marian, "tell us who she is?"

"Is she a Broadway star?" asked Prue.

"Oh, she's a star all right," Cecile said, with disgust in her tone. "We've been a trio of sillies, ignoring her. Fordy's fallen on both feet—only he's too dense to know it, I s'pose."

"Tell us!" commanded Prue. "Who is she?"

"She's no screen actress," answered the gloomy Cecile.

"Who is she, then?" gasped Marian.

"Sue Perriton says she is Mrs. Conroth's niece, and Mrs. Conroth is all the Society with a capital letter there is. Now, figure it out," said Cecile tartly. "If you smarties had taken her up right at the start——"

"But we didn't kno-o-ow!" wailed Marian.

"Go on!" commanded Prue grimly.

"Why, Miss Grayling's father is a big scientist, or something, at Washington. Her mother happened to be born here on the Cape; she was a Card. This girl is just stopping over there with that old fellow who keeps the store—her half-uncle—for a lark. What do you know about that?"

"My word!" murmured Marian.

"And Ford———"

"He's mamma's precious white-haired boy this time," declared the slangy Cecile.

"Do—do you suppose he knew it all the time?" questioned Marian.

"Never! Just like old Doc Ambrose says, there isn't much above Fordy's ears but solid bone," scoffed L'Enfant Terrible.

"Wait till ma hears of this," murmured Prue, and they proceeded to beat a retreat for home that their mother might be informed of the wonder. Lawford was already out of sight.

"How really fortunate Fordy is," murmured Mrs. Tapp, having received the shocking news and been revived after it. "Fancy! Mrs. Conroth's own niece!"

"It's going to put us in just right with the best of the crowd at The Beaches," Prue announced. "We've only been tolerated so far."

"Oh, Prudence!" admonished Mrs. Tapp.

"That's the truth," her second daughter repeated bluntly. "We might as well admit it. Now, if Fordy only puts this over with this Miss Grayling, they'll have to take us up; for it's plain to be seen they won't drop Miss Grayling, no matter whom she marries."

"If Fordy doesn't miss the chance," muttered Cecile.

"He can't!"

"He mustn't!"

"He wouldn't be mean enough to drop her just to spite us!" wailed Marian.

"No," said Prue. "He won't do that. Ford isn't a butterfly. You must admit that he's as steadfast as a rock in his likes and dislikes. Once he gets a thing in that head of his———Well! I'm sure he's fond of Miss Grayling."

"But that big actor?" suggested Cecile.

"Surely," gasped Mrs. Tapp, "the girl cannot fancy such a person as that?"

"My! you should just see Judson Bane," sighed Cecile.

"He's the matinee girl's delight," drawled Marian. "Ford has the advantage, however, if he will take it. He's too modest."

Mrs. Tapp's face suddenly paled and she clasped a plump hand to her bosom. "Oh, girls!" she gasped.

"Now what, mother?" begged Prue.

"What will I. Tapp say?"

"Oh, bother father!" scoffed L'Enfant Terrible.

"He doesn't care what Ford does," Prue said.

"Does he ever really care what any of us does?" observed Marian, yet looking doubtfully at her mother.

"You don't understand, girls!" wailed Mrs. Tapp, wringing her hands. "You know he made me write and invite that Johnson girl here."

"Oh, Dot Johnson!" said Prue. "Well, she is harmless."

"She's not harmless," declared Mrs. Tapp. "I. Tapp ordered me to get her here because, he wants Ford to marry her."