"Horn-pout! Toad sculpin! Bah! Get out!"

Jim slat the fish disgustedly off, and he sculled slowly downward. Two more bare hooks. Then three hake in succession, the largest not over five pounds. On the next line hung a writhing, twisting shape about eighteen inches long. With a wry face Jim held the thing up for Percy's inspection.

"Slime eel! He's tied the ganging into knots and thrown off his jacket. Look here!"

He stripped from the line a handful of tough, stringy slime like a mass of soft soap.

"How's that for an overcoat! They always throw it off when they get hung up on a trawl."

Flinging the stuff away with a grimace, he rinsed his hand and cut off the ganging with his knife.

"No use trying to unhook that fellow!"

Fathom after fathom of trawl came in over the roller. The flapping, dying heap in the center of the dory enlarged steadily. Jim was spattered with scales from head to foot, and drenched with water from the splashing tails. He stopped for a moment to rest.



"Now you see what oil-clothes are good for," said he. "I'll give you your chance in a little while."

Percy had kept the Barracouta near by as Jim pulled the dory along the trawl. He could watch the process very well from the sloop, and he was by no means anxious for a personal experience with it. It looked too much like hard work. He made no reply to Jim's offer.

Refreshed by his rest, the latter resumed hauling. Up came a little cluster of yellow plums, as large as small walnuts, each on a stem six inches long, attached to a brownish bunch of roots.

"Nigger-heads! Always grow on rocky bottom; nicest kind of place for fish. Trawl must have run over a patch of ledge. We're likely to pick up something here besides hake. What's this?"

A heavy fish appeared, hanging motionless on the next ganging. Jim gave a shout.

"Haddock! Twelve-pounder. Swallowed the hook and worried himself to death. Drowned!"

"Drown a fish!" jeered Percy.

"Sure you can, any kind of fish, if you only keep his mouth open. If this fellow hadn't taken the bait in so deep he'd have been liable to break away. Fishermen call 'em 'butter-mouths,' their flesh is so tender; under jaw's the only place where a hook will hold to lift 'em by. See his red lips, and that black streak down each side. And look at these two black spots, big as silver dollars, on his shoulders; that's where they say the devil got him between his thumb and forefinger, but couldn't hold on."

It was now not far from four o'clock. The sun, rising straight from the water, lifted his fiery red disk above the eastern horizon. It was a strange sight to Percy. The sunrises he had seen could almost be numbered on the fingers of one hand. He yawned. The novelty of trawling was wearing off; he wished himself back in his hard bunk.

A heavy, chunky fish of an old-gold color, with an almost continuous line of fins, was the next habitant of the sea to cross the dory gunwale. Jim held him up to show Percy.

"Look at this cusk! He likes rocky bottom as well as a haddock. He's used to deep water, and if you start him up quick his stomach will blow out of his mouth like a bladder. I've seen 'em so plenty that they floated a trawl on top of water for half a mile."

Seven or eight small haddock and cusk, and then once more the trawl began to yield hake.

"Back again on muddy bottom," said Jim. "What d'you say to trying your hand at it?"

Percy agreed, but without enthusiasm. He had seen enough to realize that pulling a trawl was no sinecure. By means of a fish-fork Jim pitched his catch aboard the sloop. The first tub of trawl was now full. He transferred it to the Barracouta and set an empty tub in its place.

"You'll find fishing is no bed of roses," he remarked as he dropped down into the standing-room.

"I believe you," answered Percy, with conviction.

He started to get aboard the dory.

"Not there!" warned Jim. "Forward of the kid-board!"

The caution came too late. Percy stepped into the slippery pen from which the fish had just been pitched; unluckily, too, he was not careful to plant his weight amidships. The dory, overbalanced to starboard, careened suddenly, and he fell sprawling on the slimy bottom. Jim could not repress an exclamation of impatience.

"Why didn't you step where I told you?"

"I didn't think she'd tip so easy," retorted Percy, angrily.

In bad humor with himself and things in general, he scrambled up and took his place back of the empty tub. Jim sheered the Barracouta off.

"Put on your nippers! If you don't your hands will be raw in a little while."

Percy thrust his fingers through the white woolen doughnuts, grasped the trawl, and began dragging it in over the roller. He made slow, awkward work of it. Jim watched him with ill-suppressed impatience, keeping up a constant stream of necessary counsel.

"Careful! Don't jerk so, or you'll catch your hooks in the gunwale. There's a good-sized one! Don't try to lift him aboard without the gaff. Press your hook down and back! Don't yank it sideways like that; you'll only hook him harder. Coil that line away more evenly, or we'll have a bad mess when we come to bait up. Don't lose that fellow! There he goes! Be more careful of the next one!"

Needful though it was, this quickfire of advice rasped on Percy's temper. The unaccustomed work tired him badly. He was soon conscious of a pain in his shoulders and across the back of his neck; his wrists ached. Every now and then the hard, wiry line slipped off the nippers and sawed across his smarting fingers or palms. But pride kept him doggedly pulling.

A dozen hake of various sizes lay behind him in the pen when a flat, kite-shaped fish, four feet long, with a caricature of a human face beneath its head, came scaling up through the water.

"What's that?" he gasped in amazement.

"Skate!"

"Shall I keep him?"

"Keep him? No! Unless you want to eat him yourself."

Bunglingly Percy tried to dismiss his unwelcome catch, but he made slow work of extricating the deeply swallowed hook. Jim had stopped the Barracouta a few feet off. With the agony that an expert feels at the unskilful butchery of a task by an amateur, he watched his mate's awkward attempts. At last he could stand it no longer.

"Come aboard the sloop, Whittington," he ordered. "I'll finish pulling the trawl."

Percy obeyed sullenly. He had almost reached his limit of physical endurance, and he was only too glad of relief for his smarting skin and aching muscles. Fishing was a miserable business, and he wanted no part of it; on that he was fully decided. But even if a job is unpleasant, a man would rather resign than be discharged. Jim's abruptness hurt his pride; the slight rankled.

From the Barracouta he somewhat enviously watched Spurling deftly unhook the skate. The remainder of the trawl was pulled in in silence. Percy kept the sloop at a distance that discouraged speech, closing the gap only when Jim signaled that he wished to discharge his cargo. By ten o'clock the last hook was reached, anchor and buoy taken aboard, and the Barracouta, with two thousand pounds of fish heaped in her kids and towing astern in the dory, headed for Tarpaulin Island.

The trip home was a glum one. Two or three times Jim tried to open a conversation, but Percy responded only in monosyllables. He was tired and sleepy, and felt generally out-of-sorts. So Jim gave it up and let him alone.

They reached Sprowl's Cove at noon. Budge and Throppy had returned some time before from pulling the lobster-traps; Jim inspected their catch.

"About forty pounds," was his estimate. "Rather slim; but then the traps were down only about twelve hours. We'll do better after we get fairly started. I'm not going trawling to-morrow; so the whole crowd can make a lobstering trip in the Barracouta. Now let's have dinner. This afternoon we'll all turn to and dress fish."

Percy filed a mental negative to the last statement. He had decided that, so far at least as Tarpaulin Island was concerned, his fishing days were over. Nevertheless, he ate a good dinner.

At one o'clock the four academy boys rowed out to the Barracouta. All but Percy had on their oilskin aprons, or "petticoats."

"Where's your regimentals, Whittington?" asked Lane.

"I'm only going to look on this afternoon," replied Percy.

The other three exchanged surprised glances, but made no comments. On board the sloop Jim was soon busily engaged in demonstrating the process of dressing fish. Budge and Throppy learned quickly. Percy's refusal to take part in the work did not prevent him from watching it with interest from the cabin roof.

The fish were split and cleaned. Their heads were cut off and thrown into a barrel, to serve later as lobster bait, and the livers tossed into pails. Their "sounds," the membrane running along the backbone, were removed and placed in a box. After the bodies had been rinsed in a tub of water, and the backbones cut out, they were flung into the dory, taken ashore and plunged into another tub of water, and then salted down in hogsheads. Three pairs of hands made speedy work.

"What do you do with those?"

Percy pointed to the pails containing the livers.

"Leave 'em in a barrel in the sun to be tried out," responded Jim. "The oil is worth more than sixty cents a gallon."

"And those?"

He indicated the box of "sounds."

"Cut 'em open with a pair of shears, press out the blood, and spread 'em on wire netting to dry for three days; then sew 'em up in sacks, to be shipped to some glue-factory. Four pounds of 'em'll bring a dollar. These things and some others are the by-products of the fishing business. They're worth too much to throw away."

Percy's eye dwelt on the knives and aprons of his three associates.

"I'm glad I don't have to fish for a living," he said.



VII

SHORTS AND COUNTERS

Percy slept soundly that night. To be sure, the alarm routed out the Spurlingites at the unseemly hour of four, but that was far better than twelve. After breakfast he enjoyed a cigarette on the beach while the others were helping Filippo clear away. It was a calm, beautiful morning, and as young Whittington gazed over the smooth, blue sea he felt that even a fisherman's life might have its redeeming features.

At six they all started to make the round of the lobster-traps, on the Barracouta. The first string of white buoys, striped with green, was encountered off Brimstone Point.

"Here's where we make a killing," said Jim.

As he approached the first buoy he opened his switch, stopping the engine. Putting on his woolen mittens, he picked up the gaff. Close under the starboard quarter bobbed the brown bottle that served as a toggle. Reaching out with his gaff, he hooked this aboard, and began hauling in the warp. At last the heavily weighted trap started off bottom and began to ascend. In a half-minute its end, draped with marine growths, broke the surface.

Holding the trap against the side, Jim tore off its incumbrances. The trailing mass was composed principally of irregular, brownish-black, leathery sheets at the end of long stems.

"Kelp!" answered Jim to Percy's inquiry. "Devil's aprons! They grow on rocky bottom. I've seen a trap so loaded with 'em that you could hardly stir it."

He dragged the lath coop up on the side. It contained a miscellaneous assortment, the most interesting objects in which were four or five black, scorpion-like shell-fish clinging to the netted heads and sprawling on the bottom. Unbuttoning the door at the top, Jim darted in his hand and seized one of these by its back. Round came the claws, wide open, and snapped shut close to his fingers; but he had grasped his prize at the one spot where the brandishing pincers could not reach him.

"He's a 'counter,' fast enough! No need of measuring him! Must weigh at least two pounds."

Jim dropped the snapping shell-fish into a tub in the standing-room.

"I thought lobsters were red," remarked Percy.

"They are—after you boil 'em."

Spurling's hand went into the trap again. This time the result was not so satisfactory. Out came a little fellow, full of fight. Jim tested his length by pressing his back between the turned-up ends of a brass measure screwed against the side of the standing-room.

"Thought so! He's a 'short'!"

He tossed the lobster overboard.

"What did you throw him away for?" asked Percy. "Isn't he good to eat?"

"Nothing better! But it's the State law. Everything that comes short of four and three-fourths inches, solid bone measure, from the tip of the nose to the end of the back, has to be thrown over where it's caught."

"Why's that?"

"To keep 'em from being exterminated. It's based on the same principle as the law on trout or any other game-fish. Lobsters are growing scarcer every year, and something has to be done to preserve 'em."

"Does everybody throw the little ones away?"

"No! If they did there'd be more of legal size. The Massachusetts law allows the sale there of lobsters an inch and a half shorter than the length specified here; so their smacks come down, lie outside the three-mile limit, and buy 'shorts' of every fisherman who's willing to break the Maine law to sell 'em. Besides that, most of the summer cottagers along the coast buy and catch all the 'shorts' they can. So it's no wonder the lobster's running out."

While Jim talked he was emptying the trap. Another "counter" went into the tub, and two more "shorts" splashed overboard. The financial side of the question interested Percy.

"How many 'shorts' will you probably get a week?"

"Five hundred or more."

"And how much would a Massachusetts smack pay you for 'em?"

"Ten or twelve cents apiece."

"Then you expect to throw more than fifty dollars a week over the side, just to obey the law?"

"That's what!"

Percy lapsed into silence. The lobsters disposed of, Jim began to clear the trap of its other contents. A big brown sculpin was floundering on the laths. Taking him out gingerly, Jim tossed him into the bait-tub upon the hake heads.

"He'll do for bait in a few days."

He picked out and threw over three or four large starfish, or "five-fingers." The hake head stuck on the bait-spear in the center was almost gone; Jim replaced it with a fresh head from the bait-tub. Then he seized a mottled, purplish crab that had been aimlessly scuttling to and fro across the bottom of the pot, and impaled him, back down, on the barb of the spear. Shutting and buttoning the door, he slid the trap overboard, started his engine, and headed for the next buoy.

Its trap was caught among the rocks on the bottom, and Jim, unable to start it by hand, was obliged to make the warp fast and have recourse to towing. Just as it looked as if the line were about to part, the trap let go. It yielded one "counter" and three "shorts." Also, it contained more than a dozen brown, unhealthy-looking, membranous things, shaped like long coin-purses, lined with rows of suckers, and with mouths at one end.

"Sea-cucumbers! I've seen a trap full of 'em, almost to the door. They're after the bait, like everything else."

Trap after trap was pulled, with varying success. Occasionally from a single one three or four good-sized lobsters would be taken; occasionally one would yield nothing at all. But the majority averaged one "counter." Percy could not accustom himself to the seeming waste of throwing over the "shorts."

"I should think you might sell those little fellows to the Massachusetts boats, and nobody be the wiser for it."

"I could; but I won't. I'll make clean money or I won't make any at all."

There was a finality in Jim's tones that closed the subject for good. Half the traps had now been hauled and there were about seventy-five pounds of lobsters in the tub. Spiny, egg-like sea-urchins, green wrinkles, and an occasional flounder or lamper-eel gave variety to the catch. There was always the hope that the next trap might yield five or six big fellows.

"Now and then," said Jim, "you get one so large he can't crawl into a pot. He'll be on the head, just as you start pulling, and he'll hang to the netting until he comes to the top. After they take hold of anything, they hate to let go."

"What's the biggest one you ever saw?" asked Lane.

"One day when I was in Rockland, a smack brought in a fifteen-pounder she'd bought at Seal Island. But of course they grow a good deal larger than that. The big ones don't taste nearly so good as the little ones. After they get to be a certain age, seven or eight years, the fishermen think, they don't 'shed.' Then you find 'em covered with barnacles, their claws cracked into squares, all wrinkled up. Those old grubbers belong to the offshore school; they stay outside, and never come in on the rocks."

Percy was listening with all his ears.

"What do you mean by saying they don't 'shed'?" he asked.

"Harken to the lecture on lobsters by Professor James Spurling!" announced Lane in stentorian tones.

The next group of traps was some distance off, so Jim had a chance to talk without interruption.

"In the spring a lobster that is growing begins to find his shell too tight, so he has to get out of it. Some time after the first of July he crawls in under the rocks or kelp, where the fish can't trouble him. His shell splits down the back and he pulls himself out. He stays there for a week or ten days while a new and larger shell is forming. When he begins to crawl again, he's raving hungry. One queer thing I almost forgot. Fishermen say that, while he is lying under cover, all soft and unprotected, a hard-shell lobster, active and ugly, generally stands guard outside the hole, ready to fight off any enemy that may come along."

By the time the last trap was pulled the lobster question had been pretty thoroughly canvassed.

"Guess I've told you all I know, and more, too," said Jim.

They were back in Sprowl's Cove at half past ten, and put their lobsters into the car with the others. Hardly had they finished when a motor-sloop came round the eastern point.

"Here's a smack!" exclaimed Jim. "On time to the minute! Shouldn't wonder if it was Captain Higgins in the Calista!"

The boat swept into the cove in a broad circle, and ranged alongside the car. At the helm stood a tall, grizzled man of perhaps sixty, with gray beard and twinkling blue eyes. A lanky, freckled boy stuck his head up out of the cabin.

"Any lobsters to sell, boys?" inquired the man.

"Isn't this Captain Higgins?" asked Jim.



"That's my name—Benjamin B. Higgins, of the smack Calista, buying lobsters from Cranberry Island to Portland, and this is my son Brad, my first mate and crew. I own this boat from garboard to main truck, bowsprit-tip to boom-end, and I don't wear any man's dog-collar. I'll give you a square deal on weight and pay you as much as any smackman, neither more nor less. Do we trade?"

"We do," answered Jim. "Let's have your dip-net!"

Stepping upon the car, he was soon bailing out the lobsters. Captain Higgins placed them in a tub on his deck scale.

"Going to be here long, boys?"

"We've taken the island for the season from my Uncle Tom Sprowl."

"So you're Cap'n Tom's nephew? Must be Ezra Spurling's boy."

Jim nodded.

"Glad to meet you! Made a trip once to the Grand Banks with Ezra; must be all of thirty years ago. Well, time flies! If you'll save your lobsters for me, I'll look in here every Thursday. How does that hit you?"

"Right between the eyes."

After the lobsters were bailed out, Jim and Budge went on board the smack. Captain Higgins weighed the heaping tub of shell-fish.

"One hundred and seventy pounds. Market price 's twenty-five."

He glanced inquiringly at Jim.

"All right!" agreed the latter.

"Then we'll put 'em in the well."

He lifted off a hatch aft of the scale, opening into a compartment containing something over three feet of water; it was twelve feet long and thirteen wide, and divided into two parts by a low partition running lengthwise of the sloop. Two water-tight bulkheads separated it from the rest of the boat, and several hundred inch-and-a-quarter holes, bored through its bottom to allow free access to the water outside, gave it the appearance of a pepper-box. It already contained hundreds of live lobsters.

Picking the shell-fish carefully from the tub, Jim and the captain dropped them, one by one, into the well. Soon all were safely transferred to their new quarters, and the hatch was replaced. Captain Higgins invited Jim and Budge down into his little den of a cabin. Unlocking an iron box, he took from it a wallet and began counting out bills.

"Forty-two dollars and a half!"

He passed the amount over to Jim.

"You carry quite a sum of ready money, Captain," said Lane.

"Yes; I have to. This business is cash on the nail. My boat can take over twelve thousand pounds of lobsters, and sometimes she's almost filled. I've started out with three thousand dollars in that box, and I rarely go with less than two thousand. It'd surprise you to figure up the amount of cash these smacks spread along the coast. They say that one winter, when lobsters were specially high, a Portland dealer paid a smackman over fifty-five hundred dollars for a single trip."

"Somebody must make a big profit. Think what a lobster costs in a market!"

"Somebody does—sometimes. But it isn't the smackmen. Lobsters ought not to be kept in a well longer than a few days. A friend of mine started out from Halifax with ten thousand pounds of Cape Breton lobsters. He got caught in a gale of wind and lost forty-seven hundred pounds before he landed in Boston. Some years ago a Maine dealer put one hundred and five thousand lobsters in a pound during May and June; he fed them chiefly on herring, and the total cost was over ten thousand dollars. Things went wrong and he took out just two hundred and fifty-four live ones. Not much profit about that!"

Arranging to call near noon the next Thursday, Captain Higgins had soon rounded Brimstone Point and was on his way to Head Harbor on Isle au Haut, his next stopping-place. In the middle of the afternoon, while the boys were baiting trawls on the Barracouta, another boat chugged into the cove. It was a smack from Boston.

"Got any lobsters, boys?" asked the captain, a red-faced, smooth-shaven man of forty.

"All sold!" was Jim's reply. "And we've arranged to let the Calista have what we get."

"What do you do with your 'shorts'?"

"Heave 'em overboard."

"Save 'em for me and I'll give you ten cents apiece for 'em."

"Nothing doing!"

"You and your crowd could clean up fifty dollars more a week here just as well as not. What are you afraid of? The warden can't get out here once in a dog's age."

"The State of Maine doesn't have to hire any warden to keep me honest."

"You're a fool, young fellow!" said the man, heatedly.

"That may be," retorted Jim, "but your saying so doesn't make me one. Besides, I'd rather be a fool than a crook."

The smackman's red face grew redder.

"Don't you get fresh with me!" he warned, threateningly. "Do you mean to say I'd do anything crooked?"

"You're the best judge about that."

Jim was tiring of the conversation. He turned his back on the stranger and resumed baiting his trawl. Finding that nothing was to be gained by a longer stop, the man, muttering angrily, started his engine and left the cove.

"I'm not saying whether this lobster law's a good thing or not," said Jim to the other boys. "Some fishermen say it isn't. But so long as it's the law it ought to be kept, until we can get a better one. I don't believe in breaking it just for the sake of making a few dollars."

"Then the law doesn't suit everybody," ventured Throppy.

"Not by a long shot! Each session of the Legislature they fight it over, and make some changes, and then a new set of people are dissatisfied. What's meat to one man is poison to another. It's impossible to pass a law somebody wouldn't find fault with."

"What keeps one man from pulling another man's traps?" asked Percy.

"His conscience, if he has any; and, if he hasn't, his dread of being found out. It's a mean kind of thieving, but more or less of it's done alongshore. Sometimes it costs a man dear. I know of two cases, within twenty-five miles of this island, where men have been shot dead for that very thing. About as unhealthy as stealing horses out West, if you're caught. Like everything else, now and then it has its funny side. Once a lobsterman lost his watch, chain and all; for a day or two he was asking everybody he met if they'd seen it. A neighbor of his went out to pull his own traps. In one of them he found the first man's watch, hanging by its chain to the door, just where it had been caught and twitched out of its owner's pocket when he had slid the trap overboard, after stealing the lobsters in it. It was a long time before he heard the last of that."

"Did he get his watch back?" asked Percy.

"Don't know!" replied Jim. "But if he didn't it served him right."

On the Barracouta's next trip to Matinicus she brought back the balance of Throppy's wireless outfit. It did not take him long to get his plant in working order. Almost every evening thereafter he spent a short time picking up messages from passing steamers and the neighboring islands, and sending others in return. The wireless came to fill an important place in the life of the boys on Tarpaulin, furnishing a bond of connection between them and the outside world.



VIII

SALT-WATER GIPSIES

A few mornings after the first call of the Calista Budge and Percy were out pulling traps. Percy had told Jim plainly that he did not care to do any more trawling. Jim had smiled and made no reply; but after that either Throppy or Budge went out with him after hake. What the others said in private about Percy he neither knew nor cared.

On this particular forenoon the lobster-catchers had half circled the island. As they nosed along the northern shore Percy spied some strange-looking floats ahead.

"There's a red buoy!" he exclaimed. "Somebody else must be fishing here!"

Incredulously Budge glanced forward. What he saw left him sober.

"You're right! This'll be unpleasant news for Jim."

They ran up to the strange float. It was a battered wedge, painted a faded brick color. Percy gaffed it aboard.

"What's the brand?" queried Budge.

"Hasn't any."

Lane examined it and found that Percy was correct. The wood bore no marks to reveal its owner.

"Better haul the trap?" asked Percy.

He began heaving in on the warp.

"Stop that!" ordered Budge, sharply. "Throw it over. We don't want to get into any scrape. We'll have to put it up to Jim this noon. He'll know what to do."

They counted nine more of the red buoys before they reached the northeast point of the island.

"Look there!"

Percy pointed toward the landlocked Sly Hole. A thin column of blue smoke was rising above it, as if from the stovepipe of an anchored boat. Budge debated for a moment, then turned the bow of the pea-pod toward the narrow entrance.

"We'll go in and see who's there."

A dozen quick strokes sent the boat through the winding channel into the little harbor. Budge rested on his oars and they looked eagerly about.

In the center of the haven lay anchored a rusty black sloop about forty feet long, a dory swinging at her stern. From her cabin drifted the sound and smell of frying fish, mingled with men's voices.

"Might as well take the bull by the horns," said Budge.

He rowed directly up to the sloop. The sounds on board evidently drowned the dipping of his oars, for it was not until the stem of the pea-pod struck the rusty side that the voices stopped and two startled brown faces popped up out of the companionway. Both men had sharp black eyes, and black shocks of hair badly in need of the barber. One was slightly gray, and a prickly stubble of unshaven beard covered his chin. The younger man had a jet-black mustache with long, drooping ends. Both wore red shirts, open at the neck, with sleeves rolled above the elbows. The younger held a half-smoked cigar, while his companion grasped a large fork, which he evidently had been using on the fish. For a few seconds the two couples regarded each other in silence.



Then the man with the black mustache smiled ingratiatingly.

"H'lo, boys!" he invited. "Won't you come 'board?"

"No, thank you," declined Budge. "When did you get here?"

"We come last night, from ... there," with a vague gesture toward the west. "We fish, we lobster. You live on dis island ... yes? We stay here, too. We be good friend. Wait!"

Diving below, he brought up a long-necked black bottle.

"You have drink?"

"No!" refused Budge, decidedly.

The man looked disappointed. He muttered a few words to his companion. The latter scowled. Then they drank from the bottle and replaced it below. The younger man began talking again.

"Disa good harbor! We build camp there."

He gestured toward the beach.

"We plenty lath on board. We make one ... two hundred trap. We stop all summer. Good friend, eh?"

"I guess so," returned Budge.

The program announced had taken him somewhat aback. He hardly knew what to reply. Pushing the pea-pod off, he turned her toward the channel.

"You livea 'cross dis island ... yes?" shouted the man after him. "We come see you to-night!"

Budge made no response to this advance. Steady, rapid pulling soon brought the boys again into open water.

"Well, what do you think now?" asked Percy.

"Wait till we hear what Jim says," was Lane's reply.

The remaining traps were hauled in double-quick time and they made a bee-line for Sprowl's Cove. Spurling and Throppy came in at noon on the Barracouta. Jim's brows knitted when he heard of their new neighbors.

"What should you say they were?" he inquired.

"Don't know," answered Lane. "Only I'm sure they're not Yankees."

"And they had no brand on their buoys?"

"Not a letter!"

"That's against the law. Suspicious, too. So they intend to build a camp here and spend the summer?"

"That's what they said."

The anxious furrows in Jim's forehead deepened. He brought his fist down hard on the Barracouta's cabin.

"Boys," he said, firmly, "they can't stop here. There aren't lobsters enough on these ledges for them and for us. What they get we won't. They've got to pull up those traps and get out just as quick as we can make 'em."

The others exchanged looks of surprise. Though they knew Jim's absolute fairness and sense of right, they could not help feeling that his decision was a harsh one. Jim read their faces.

"I know what you're thinking, boys. It seems as if I had no right to drive 'em off. But suppose any one of you owned a piece of woods on the mainland, and a stranger should come and begin to chop the trees down without your permission. How long would you stand it? The same principle holds good here, even if it is twenty-five miles offshore. This is my uncle Tom's island. He's been paying taxes on it for years. His living comes from it and the waters round it. He's leased it to us on shares, and we've got to look out for his interest as well as our own.

"But how can you stop them from setting traps?" queried Lane. "I thought the sea beyond low-water mark was public property."

"It is. They can set as many traps as they can bring on their sloop, and I never could trouble 'em so long as they lived aboard. If they fished with only the few they've got now I'd never say a word. But when they talk of building a camp ashore, and going into the business wholesale with one or two hundred pots, we must draw the line, and draw it sharp. They can't use any of the shore legally without my permission, and that they'll never get; and if they try to use it illegally they'll find themselves in hot water mighty quick.

"Another thing," he continued, "they're strangers to us, and drinking men. They might pull our traps or accuse us of pulling theirs. There's a chance for all sorts of mix-ups. No, they've got to go, and the sooner the better."

"They're coming across to call to-night," said Lane.

"Not if we can get over there first. We'll go round in the sloop as soon as these hake are dressed and salted."

At four o'clock the last fish was slapped down on the rounded-up tub.

"Now we'll go," announced Jim. "Come on, everybody! You, too, Filippo! Might as well show up our full force. It may help stave off trouble."

"Aren't you going to take the gun?" Percy inquired.

"Gun? No! What'd we want of that? We don't intend to shoot anybody."

Twenty minutes after the Barracouta left Sprowl's Cove she was thudding into the Sly Hole. The sloop still lay at anchor in its center, but the dory was grounded on the beach. From the woods above, ax-strokes echoed faintly.

"Either cutting firewood or beginning on that camp," said Jim.

Presently the chopping ceased. Before long the two men appeared on the top of the bank, dragging a spruce trunk about twenty feet long. On seeing the Barracouta they halted in surprise, then dropped the tree and hurried down to their dory.

"Seem to be afraid we've been mousing round aboard their boat," muttered Spurling.

Without responding to his hail the two strangers rowed hastily to their sloop and went below. A minute or two of investigation evidently satisfied them that nothing had been disturbed. As they came up again Jim ran the Barracouta alongside.

"Where you from?" he asked.

The younger man again acted as spokesman:

"Way off ... there!"

As when Budge had questioned him, he gestured vaguely toward the west. Then he launched into a repetition of what he had said that forenoon.

"We stay on dis island all summer. Make trap. Build camp. Catch plenty fish, plenty lobster. All friend, eh?"

He laid his left hand on his heart, and with his right made a sweeping gesture that included the whole group.

"You wait!"

Dropping suddenly out of sight, he reappeared with equal quickness, brandishing the black bottle.

"We drink ... all together, eh?"

Jim brushed his proffer aside.

"I've hired this island. You'll have to pay me rent if you stop here."

A shadow of wrath swept over the dark face. Instantly it was gone, and a smile replaced it.

"Rent!" he protested. "No, no! Friend no pay! We sing, we smoke, we drink, we playa cards. All good friend together. No pay money!"

The last very decided. The older man nodded vigorously in confirmation, and for the first time broke silence.

"No pay money!" he repeated. "All friend!"

The two laid their hands on their hearts and stood smiling and bowing. For a moment Jim was nonplussed. He backed the Barracouta out of earshot.

"Well, what d'you think of the outlook?" asked Lane.

"Don't like it, and I don't like them. Too much palaver! I've got 'em sized up. They're regular salt-water gipsies; I've heard of 'em before. They drift round from one place to another, fish a little, lobster a little, smoke a good deal, and drink more. They'd be worse than a pestilence on this island. Yes, sir! They've got to go! They know just as well as I do that they've no right to stop here; but they're going to bluff it through. They'll try to stave me off by pretending not to understand what I mean, but you noticed they were bright enough when money was mentioned."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Tell 'em they've got to go!"

"And if they won't?"

"Send for the sheriff!"

While the boys had been holding their council of war the two men had disappeared into their cabin, where they held an angry, but unintelligible, discussion. As Jim brought the Barracouta once more alongside their heads quickly appeared. They were scowling blackly.

"Will you pay rent?" demanded Jim.

"No pay rent," came the defiant reply from both together.

"Pull up your traps, then, and go!"

"No go!" exclaimed the younger. "You go! We stay!"

"That settles it," said Jim. "I'll send for the sheriff to-night, and have him here in the morning."

He leaned over to start his engine. At his first movement the two dropped out of sight, but before he could rock the wheel they were up again, each holding a shot-gun. They leveled these weapons at the Barracouta.

"No send for sheriff! No start engine!"

Jim straightened up and the startled boys glanced at one another. The demonstration of hostility had come like a bolt from a clear sky. Things looked ugly. Again the younger man spoke.

"S'pose you go for sheriff. We stay! Cut buoy! Sink boat! Burn cabin! Then go before you get back! How you like that, eh?"

For once Jim was at a loss. What answer could be made to such an argument? The other noted his hesitation, and smiled triumphantly.

"You let us alone, we let you alone! You trouble us, we trouble you. Now you go!"

It was half a permission, half a command, backed by the leveled guns. Jim was on the point of starting the engine when Filippo interrupted him.

"Misser Jim, let me talk to 'em," he begged in a low tone.

Spurling glanced at him in surprise.

"What for, Filippo? Are they countrymen of yours?"

"Don't know! I see!"

"Go ahead, then! It can't do any hurt."

"Hi!" called out Filippo. "Listen! Ascoltatemi!"

The two men started as if they had been shot; they fixed their gaze on Filippo. He began talking rapidly to them in Italian, gesturing freely. They replied in the same language. For fully ten minutes the heated dialogue continued. Jim and his mates listened in silence, now and then catching a word they had learned from Filippo, but not comprehending the drift of the debate.

At last it was clear that some conclusion had been reached. Shaking their heads in disgust, the two sullenly restored their guns to the cabin. Filippo turned to Jim.

"All right! They go to-night, after they pull traps. Now we start—right away!"

Jim looked at the Italian in amazement; but he started the engine and the sloop forged out of the cove. Once in the passage, he broke silence.

"How did you ever manage it, Filippo?"

"I tell them your uncle own island; you hire it of him for summer. You lots of friends. If they no go, you send for sheriff right away. We too many for them. Guard cabin with gun till you get back. Sheriff come in night, while they sleep. Take them, take boat, take trap. Put them in jail. They break rock, work on road rest of summer. They not like that. They go!"

"Good enough, Filippo! Guess you didn't strain the truth much. You certainly have got us out of an unpleasant hole. I'm free to say I was at my wits' end. Good thing for us we ran across you on the wharf at Stonington!"

"Better thing for me!" answered Filippo.

That evening after supper the boys stole silently through the woods to the northeastern end of the island. The Sly Hole was empty! The sloop had gone!

Stepping out of the evergreens, Jim looked westward along the shore.

"There they are!"

The dory towing astern was piled high with traps.

"Shouldn't wonder if they had some of ours among 'em!" exclaimed Jim. "No matter! We're getting rid of 'em cheap, if they scoop a dozen! But look at that! They've got all they want, and now they're cutting away our buoys! Here's where I call a halt!"

He sprang out upon the bank in plain sight.

"Hi, there! Stop that!"

One of the men had just gaffed a buoy. At Jim's hail he glanced up and waved his hand nonchalantly. Then he deliberately cut the warp. The other man dropped into the cabin and reappeared with the two guns. Jim threw himself flat on his face.

"Down, boys!" he cried.

A hail of birdshot peppered the bluff and the woods behind it as both the double-barrels roared out in unison. One leaden pellet drew blood from the back of Jim's hand, while Throppy, a little slow in dropping to cover, was stung on the cheek. The others were untouched. Percy shook with fright and excitement. Lane was boiling with anger.

"Let's take the Barracouta and follow 'em!" he proposed.

"Cool off, Budge!" laughed Jim. "That's just a parting salute. Besides, they've got two guns to our one. Let 'em go! And good riddance to bad rubbish! See! They're on their way now!"

The sloop's head swung to the north and she filled away.

"They've done what damage they've dared and they're gone for good. They'll be up at Isle au Haut to-night, either in Head Harbor or Kimball's Island Thoroughfare. Forget 'em!"

"Lucky my temper isn't hitched up with your strength," said Lane.



IX

FISTS AND FIREWORKS

Late on the afternoon of July 3d, when the morning's catch of eighteen hundred pounds of hake had been split and salted, Spurling called a council of war. Percy attended with the others. He had gone out with Budge in the morning to haul the lobster-traps; the rest of the day he had loafed, lying on the soft turf below the beacon on Brimstone Point and reading The Three Musketeers.

Of the work that pleased him he had determined to do only as much as he liked, and not a stroke more. Lobstering was really attractive; there was enough novelty and excitement about it to keep him interested. When a pot came up it might contain no shell-fish or a half-dozen; the element of uncertainty appealed to his sporting instincts. But fishing he had stricken utterly from his list. It was too hard and too dirty. Slogging at the heavy trawls and afterward dressing the catch was too plebeian a business for the son of a millionaire.

So he let the others tire their muscles and soil their hands and clothing while he attended strictly to the business of pleasing himself. He could not help being aware of a growing coolness on the part of his associates, but it gave him no concern. His month of probation was almost up, and he had decided that, come what might, he would leave at its end. Only a few days more, and this hard, monotonous island life would be behind him forever. He would send back a check to cover the expense of his board, and that would permanently close his relations with Spurling & Company.

This resolve to pay for meals and lodging gave him a feeling of independence. Hence, though he knew the others did not care whether he attended or not, he felt himself entitled to a place at the council.

The meeting took place on the beach in front of the cabin. Spurling and Stevens had just come from the Barracouta, their oilskin "petticoats" bearing gory evidence of their work for the last two hours.

"Fellows," proposed Jim, "to-morrow let's celebrate! We can't set the trawls, for we haven't anything to bait up with. And even if we had, I don't believe in working on the Fourth. When I was at Matinicus the other day I saw a poster advertising a ball-game and big celebration at Vinalhaven. We'll have an early breakfast and run up there in the Barracouta. First, we'll go to Hardy's weir and take in a lot of herring for bait. Then we can slip round to Carver's Harbor and spend the rest of the day ashore. What d'you say?"

There was no doubt regarding the vote.

"The ayes have it!" shouted Spurling. "Now let's get everything in trim for day after to-morrow! We won't pull the traps again until then."

Filled with enthusiasm at the prospect of a holiday, Budge, Throppy, and Jim dispersed to their various tasks. Yawningly, Percy returned to Brimstone Point and The Three Musketeers. After all, doing nothing on an island twenty-five miles out at sea was pretty dull work.

The boys had an early supper and were soon asleep. Turning out at daybreak, they despatched a hearty meal of corn-bread and bacon. Everybody but Percy took hold with the dishes and helped tidy up the camp. Shortly after sunrise they were sailing out of the cove in the Barracouta.

The trip in past Saddleback Light to Vinalhaven was uneventful. By eight o'clock they were lying alongside Hardy's weir, and its owner was dipping bushel after bushel of shining herring into the pen aboard the sloop. Before ten they were anchored off the steamboat wharf at Carver's Harbor.

The town was in gala dress. Bunting streamed everywhere. Torpedoes, firecrackers, bombs, and revolvers rent the air with deafening explosions. The brass guns on two yachts in the harbor contributed an occasional salvo. As the boys rowed in to the shore the strains of "The Star-Spangled Banner" came floating over the water, and round the outer point appeared one of the small bay steamers, loaded with excursionists, including a brass band. On board also was the Camden baseball team, scheduled to play the opening game in the county league series with the home team that afternoon.

Bedlam broke loose as the steamer made fast to the wharf and the crowd aboard streamed ashore. To Spurling and his friends, after three weeks of Tarpaulin Island, the narrow, winding street with its holiday crowd afforded the bustle and varied interest of a city. Even Percy deigned to allow himself to be tempted out of the sulky dignity which he had assumed since the council of the previous afternoon.

The group scattered. Lane and Stevens wandered about town, taking in the sights and dodging the torpedoes and firecrackers of enthusiastic patriots of a more or less tender age. Spurling found an old 'longshore acquaintance from a visiting boat and went off aboard to inspect his new type of engine. Filippo struck up an eternal friendship with a fellow-countryman from the granite quarries on Hurricane. Percy, left to his own resources, invested in a new brand of cigarettes and promenaded back and forth along the main street, smoking and eying the passers-by superciliously.

Noon found the restaurants packed with hungry excursionists; but the crowds were good-natured and everybody was able to get plenty to eat. At two o'clock there was a grand rush to the baseball-grounds.

Spurling, Lane, and Stevens sat together in the front of the stand; Percy perched at the extreme right of the topmost row; while Filippo lay on the grass back of third base with his new-found, swarthy compatriot.

Evidently there was some hitch about beginning the game. The Vinalhavens had taken the field for practice. The Camden team, bunched close together, were talking earnestly, meanwhile casting anxious glances toward the street that led to the water.

The Vinalhaven scorer passed before the stand with his book.

"What's the trouble?" asked Stevens.

"Camden catcher and third-baseman haven't shown up. They started out with a party in a power-boat before the steamer. Engine must have broken down. Here it is time to call the game, and the visiting team two men short! And the biggest crowd of the season here! Can you beat that for luck?"

The Camden pitcher separated himself from his companions and strolled toward the stand.

"Anybody here want to put on a mitt and stop a few fast ones?" he inquired.

"That means you, Jim!" said Lane. "Come on! Don't be too modest!"

Spurling climbed out over the front of the stand.

"I'll try to hold you for a little while," he volunteered.

Soon he was smoothly receiving the pitcher's curves and lobbing them back. The combination went like clockwork. In the mean time the rest of the Camden team had taken the field and were warming up. The missing members had not yet appeared.

"That'll do for a while," said the pitcher.

The two drew to one side.

"What team have you been catching on?" asked the Camden man, suddenly.

"Graffam Academy."

"I knew you must have traveled with a pretty speedy bunch. My name's Beverage."

"Mine's Spurling."

"Say, old man, I want you to do us a big favor. Catch this game for Camden, will you?"

"I've been out of practice for over a month," objected Jim.

"Never mind about that! I don't mean to flatter you, but we've got nothing in this league that can touch you. Come, now! As a personal favor to me!"

"All right. I'll do my best."

"Good for you! Now we've got to pick up a third-baseman!"

Jim hesitated.

"Our Academy shortstop is here," he said, slowly. "He can play a mighty good third at a pinch."

"If he's willing, we'll take him on your say-so, and snap at the chance."

Jim walked to the front of the stand.

"You're signed for third for this game, Budge! I'm going to catch."

"We've got a couple of spare suits," said Beverage. "Come on over to the hotel and change."

In fifteen minutes Lane and Spurling were back on the field in Camden uniforms and the game had begun.

The contest was a hot one. The teams were evenly matched, and the result hung in doubt up to the last inning. The crowd boiled with enthusiasm and the supporters of each team cheered themselves hoarse.

In the middle of the fifth inning, when the excitement was running highest, a slim, bareheaded figure with a tow pompadour sprouting above a fog-burnt face leaped suddenly up at the right end of the top row in the stand.

It was Percy. Exhilarated by the closeness of the game, he had forgotten his grudge against Spurling & Company. He flourished a roll of bills.

"Two to one on Camden!" he shouted in a high-keyed voice.

All heads turned his way. For a moment nobody spoke. Percy mistook the silence. He struck a theatric attitude.



"Three to one! Are you afraid to support your home team?"

A girl giggled. Two or three boys hooted. Then a short, dark, thick-set man in the second row whirled about and answered the challenger.

"No," he said, deliberately. "We're not afraid to support our nine. If we were, it wouldn't be playing here to-day. We expect it to do its best. If it wins, it wins. If it loses, it loses. And that's all there is to it. Whatever dollars we have to put into baseball will go to meet the regular expenses of the team. We haven't any money to fool away in betting; and we don't care for any more second-hand talk from a half-baked youngster like you! You get me?"

The crowd applauded uproariously. Pursued by the jeers and catcalls of the small fry, Percy sat down, his face, if possible, redder than before.

Spurling caught an errorless game. It was Lane's bat in the last half of the ninth that finally drove in the winning run for Camden. Five to four.

The crowd streamed noisily off the grounds. A knot of the younger element tried to heckle Percy, but he strode loftily by them, puffing his inevitable cigarette. Jim and Budge went to the hotel with the Camden team to change their suits.

Beverage was jubilant over the victory.

"It's a mean thing to say," he remarked; "but I'm glad that power-boat didn't get here. We owe the game to you two fellows. How much shall we pay you?"

"Nothing," answered Jim. "We're paid already. We've enjoyed winning as much as you have."

"Well, if you ever come to Camden, remember that you own the town."

The boys decided to stop over for the early-evening celebration. The Vinalhavens were good losers, and the excursion steamer was not to start back until nine o'clock, so the town promised to be lively enough for the next few hours.

Before it had grown very dark the streets began to blaze with fireworks. Percy's remarks of the afternoon still rankled in the minds of the junior portion of the residents, and, as he sauntered to and fro, he became the butt of many pointed jests. He ignored them all. Such trivialities were beneath the notice of a scion of the house of Whittington.

It was his air of haughty superiority that got him into trouble. Tempted beyond endurance by his cool, insolent swagger, a small boy on the other side of the street discharged a Roman candle at him point-blank. One of the fiery balls struck his right side and dropped into the open pocket of his coat, starting a lively blaze. The garment got a smart scorching, and Percy's fingers were burnt and his feelings badly ruffled before he succeeded in extinguishing the conflagration.

Singling out the offender among a group of boys dancing delightedly up and down, Percy made a sudden rush and pounced upon him like a hawk on a chicken. Holding him by the collar, he cuffed his ears soundly. The criminal wriggled and twisted, loudly and tearfully protesting his innocence.

A stocky, freckled lad of about eighteen, with a close-cut head of brown hair, came out of a neighboring house on the run. His snub nose and projecting jaw suggested a human bulldog. He thrust his face close up to Percy's.

"What're you maulin' my brother for?" he demanded, truculently.

Percy dropped his victim, having finished chastising him. The latter rubbed his eyes and howled louder than ever.

"I asked you why you were maulin' my brother," reiterated the newcomer in a still more belligerent tone.

"Because he burned this hole in my coat," replied Percy, exhibiting the damaged garment.

"I didn't do it!" howled the boy.

"You hear that?" exclaimed the freckled lad, angrily. "He says he didn't and I say he didn't."

"Well, I say he did!"

"Do you mean to tell me I lie?"

Percy became suddenly aware that a ring was forming round him. He cast a hasty glance about the lowering faces and recognized some of his would-be hecklers of the afternoon. No Tarpaulin Islanders were there. He was a stranger in a strange land. But the Whittington in him was up, and he did not blench. He faced his questioner.

"If you say he didn't burn that hole—yes!"

An indignant chorus rose from the group.

"Did you hear that, Jabe? He called you a liar. I wouldn't stand that. Make him eat those words! It's the fresh guy who made the cheap talk at the ball-game. Soak him! Do him up!"

Spurred on by these exhortations, Jabe dropped his head between his shoulders and came at his enemy with the rush of a mad bull.

Percy was a good boxer. He had taken lessons from several first-class sparring-masters, and would have been no mean antagonist for anybody of his age and weight. But Jabe was a year older and fully twenty-five pounds heavier. Evidently, too, he had the abounding health and strength that come from life in the open. The odds against the city boy were heavy, but he stood up gamely.

Jabe rushed in upon him and struck with all his might. Percy side-stepped, and the blow went harmlessly by, while his assailant's rush carried him to the other side of the ring. Whirling about with a cry of rage, he came back, swinging his arms like a windmill.

"Now, Jabe! Now, Jabe!" rose the cry.

Again Percy leaped aside, and his right arm shot out. The blow caught his foe fairly under the left ear, and he went sprawling; but he was down only for a moment. Springing to his feet, he hurled himself into the fray with redoubled fury. Again he was knocked down, and again he renewed the battle, with more strength than before.

The fight could not last long. It was muscle against science, and in the end muscle won. Percy began to tire and to grow short of breath. He had smoked too many cigarettes to be able to keep up such a whirlwind pace for many minutes. Though he landed five blows to his enemy's one, the latter's one did more damage than his five.

For the first time in the contest Jabe used his head. Hitherto he had struck straight for the mark each time. Now he feinted with his right for his foe's body. Percy dropped his guard somewhat wearily. Before he realized what was happening, Jabe's left, sent in with tremendous force, hit him a smashing blow squarely on the nose, knocking him over backward.

It was the beginning of the end. Percy tottered up, blood spurting from his nose, his head spinning. He saw Jabe preparing for another rush and knew it would be the last one. He stiffened himself to receive the knock-out.

A tall, broad-shouldered figure broke through the circle.

"What's the trouble here?"

It was Spurling's voice. His glance took in the situation.

"That'll be about all," he said. "Come away, Whittington!"

A bullet-headed, shirt-sleeved man bristled up defiantly. It was Jabe's father.

"Guess we'll let 'em fight it out," he observed.

His boy was winning.

"No," said Jim. "It's gone far enough."

"Not looking for trouble, are you?"

"No," remarked Jim, easily. "I don't want any trouble with you, and you don't want any with me."

The shirt-sleeved man glanced appraisingly at his square shoulders and strongly knit figure.

"Right you are, George!" he laughed. "I don't want any trouble with you. You must be a mind-reader. You call off your dog and I'll call off mine."

He grasped Jabe by the collar and jerked him backward. Jim dropped a compelling hand on Percy's shoulder.

"Come on, Whittington! You ought to have brains enough to know you've been licked. It's time we started for Tarpaulin Island."



X

REBELLION IN CAMP

Conversation lagged on the Barracouta as she jogged smoothly over the starlit sea toward Tarpaulin Island. By the dim light of two lanterns, Jim, Throppy, Budge, and Filippo were busy baiting the trawls with herring and coiling them into the tubs in the standing-room. Percy had withdrawn from his companions and lay across the heel of the bowsprit on the decked-over bow.

He had stanched the flow of blood from his nose, but it still pained him, and he was otherwise bruised and badly shaken by the buffets from Jabe's knobby fists. Judged by Percy's feelings, Jabe must have been all knuckles. Percy had to acknowledge that only Spurling's opportune appearance had saved him from being pounded unmercifully. But his pride had been injured far more than his physical body. It seemed improbable that he would ever see Jabe again, but he determined that some time, somewhere, and somehow the freckled lad should pay dearly for the slight he had put upon the house of Whittington.

It was a few minutes past eleven when the sloop's engine stopped and she glided up to her mooring in Sprowl's Cove. Five sleepy boys tumbled into the dory and paddled ashore. The Fourth was over and the routine of workaday life would begin again for them early the next morning.

Nemo dashed back and forth on the beach, barking a furious welcome and springing upon his masters indiscriminately. Unwittingly he leaped at Percy and in playful mood closed his teeth over the lad's right thumb, sprained and aching from the fight.

"Get out, you cur!" exclaimed Whittington.

He launched an aimless, vindictive kick in the general direction of the gamboling beast. As often happens with random blows, it went too true. Nemo ki-yied up the beach on three legs.

"What are you about, Whittington?" burst out Lane, angrily. Among the entire five he was the fondest of the dog.

Percy was ashamed and sorry that he had hurt the animal, but Lane's eruption of temper smothered his repentant feelings.

"He bit my thumb," he muttered, sullenly.

"You know well enough he was just in sport. Don't you kick him again! You hear me!"

Percy mumbled an indistinct reply. As soon as the cabin was unlocked he turned into his bunk, without a word to anybody. For him the Fourth had been anything but a holiday.

Before going to sleep, Spurling outlined their work for the morrow.

"Throppy, you and I'll try our luck on Martingale Bank. It's only a half-mile northwest of the island, and sometimes you can get a big catch there. I've been saving it for a time like this. Budge, you and Percy ought to get at least a couple of hundred pounds out of those lobster-traps. They'll have been down two days and should yield some good-sized ones. Set the clock at four, Filippo! We'll be lazy for once."

Percy's sleep was broken. He dreamed of being chased along the main street of Vinalhaven by a crowd of small boys shooting at him with Roman candles. He dodged into an open doorway, only to be driven out by a giant with Jabe's face and a half-dozen pairs of arms the fists of which were studded with a double allowance of knuckles. He was fast being pounded to a pulp when the alarm-clock went off. He woke in a cold sweat.

Lying with closed eyes, he pretended to be asleep while Jim and Throppy finished a hasty breakfast. Soon the exhaust of the Barracouta proclaimed that they were on their way to Martingale Bank. Percy dozed, but remained conscious of Filippo's culinary operations.

At five Lane turned out, according to schedule. He shook Percy vigorously.

"Wake up, Whittington! Breakfast!"

"Don't care for mine yet."

"Aren't you going out with me to haul those traps?"

"No!" retorted Percy, sourly.

"Suit yourself!" was Lane's brief response.

Percy knew that Budge would rather go without him. He heard him give a whistle as he examined Nemo's leg; the animal cringed and whimpered.

"Poor fellow! Too bad!" sympathized Lane.

The remark was evidently intended for Percy's ears. At least the lad took it so. He felt sorry if Nemo was really hurt. Lane went out, and Percy turned over for another nap. When he next woke it was almost seven and the cabin was empty. He got up and dressed leisurely.

Looking out of the window, he saw Filippo digging clams on the flats across the cove. That meant chowder for dinner, a dish he particularly detested. He made a wry mouth and turned to the larder, but could discover nothing but some cold fish and fried potatoes. The fire had gone out, and he determined to await Filippo's return before breakfasting.

Deliberately scratching a match, he lighted a cigarette, thereby breaking the rule against smoking in the cabin. Then he stretched himself out on his bunk and began reading The Three Musketeers. Filippo returned before he had finished his chapter. The Italian's eyes grew round at the tobacco smoke.

"You know Misser Jim say no smoking!"

"Mister Jim isn't here now. You mind your own business and I'll mind mine. Get me some breakfast, will you?"

"Fire gone out while you sleep and everything grow cold. You bring some wood and I build another."

To Percy's still overstrained nerves Filippo's way of putting the matter suggested a condition on which the meal depended rather than a request.

"Bring it yourself!" he growled. "I'm no servant! I don't shag kindling for any Dago!"

At this insult Filippo's olive cheeks became quite pale. Into his eyes flashed a look Whittington had never seen there before. For an instant he almost feared that the young foreigner was about to seize a knife and spring upon him. Then the look passed and Filippo's color came back.

"All right!" he laughed. "No wood, no breakfast!"

Stepping out to the fish-house, he began shelling the clams he had just dug. Percy vacillated between pride and hunger. Hunger won.



"I didn't mean that, Filippo," he repented. "I beg your pardon. I'll get the wood."

He did, and Filippo heated up the fish and potatoes. Percy tried to engage him in conversation, but was able to extract only monosyllables in return. Evidently his hasty words still rankled in the Italian's breast.

Breakfast over, Percy took his book and started for the beacon. It was a beautiful July morning. The sea rippled blue and sparkling to the horizon. Budge was hauling his traps on the ledges around the base of Brimstone. A half-mile farther out Jim and Throppy were busy at their trawls. Conditions for fishing could not have been more ideal.

For a time Percy tried to read; but somehow Dumas's heroes failed to keep his interest. The sense of contrast between his own idleness and his mates' industry took all the pleasure out of his book. He tossed it aside and stood up. A motor-boat was rounding the eastern point. Percy recognized her as the Calista. Ordinarily he would have been glad to exchange chaff with Captain Higgins and Brad while they dipped the lobsters out of the car. This morning, however, he felt too much disgruntled to joke with anybody.

A hawk with a flapping fish clutched in its talons scaled in from the south and disappeared among the evergreens. Percy suspected that there was a nest somewhere in the scrub growth. The search for it promised just enough of novelty to keep him interested. Making a detour around the north shore, so as to keep out of sight of Captain Higgins, he began hunting for the nest in the tops of the low trees.

Two hours went by fruitlessly. It was hot and breathless in the close woods. Despite his dislike for clam chowder, Percy found himself growing hungry. At last he gave up the search in disgust, and started back for camp by the shortest route.

As he emerged into the cool breeze on the summit of the high southern shore he saw that the Calista still lay at anchor in the cove. Lane was alongside her in the pea-pod, while Jim and Throppy were rounding Brimstone Point in the Barracouta, with the dory in tow. The keenness of Percy's appetite made him careless of whether he was seen or not. He took the trail leading along the edge of the pasture. Directly below him the bank broke off in an abrupt dirt slope seventy-five feet high, overhung by a brow of sagging turf.

Behind and above the cabin the slope was unusually steep. As Percy reached this point his eye was caught by a smoke-feather on the southern horizon. Steamers always interested him. Stopping, and shading his eyes with his hand, he gazed intently at the distant vessel. The Barracouta was now just entering the cove; the thudding of her exhaust echoed loudly against the barrier of earth beneath his feet.

The rapid detonations, beating upon Percy's ear-drums, drowned until too late the quick pad-pad of hoofs from the opposite direction. Engrossed in watching the steamer, he had forgotten everything else. A nasal, threatening bleat, rising suddenly behind, roused him to a sense of danger. He whirled about.

Charging straight at him, head down, only a few feet distant, old Aries, the ram, spurned the turf with drumming hoofs.

Behind lay the treeless pasture; in front the bank fell away steeply. Instant flight along the trail was Percy's only resort. He turned to run.

As he jammed his heel down hard to gain momentum for his start, the overhanging sod broke suddenly. His foot slumped, and before he could recover himself his foe was upon him.

Biff!

Struck from behind with the force of a battering-ram, Percy shot over the brink. As he fell he described a partial somersault, landing on hands and knees half-way down the slope. His momentum carried him heels over head, and he rolled and tumbled the rest of the way, bringing up in a heap at the bottom.



He scrambled to his feet, wild with rage. Peals of mirth from the cove reached his ears. His mates and Captain Higgins, as soon as they saw that he was not seriously hurt, had doubled up with laughter. Their outburst of merriment increased Percy's fury.

A triumphant bleat resounded above. Outlined clearly against a background of blue sky, legs well apart and hoofs braced stoutly, Aries stood on the brink, gazing proudly down upon his overthrown enemy. White with wrath, Percy groped for a stone and launched it viciously. It just grazed the ram's head. The laughter from the cove redoubled.

A new idea struck Percy. Darting into the cabin, he ran out with Uncle Tom's shot-gun.

"None of that, Whittington!" bellowed Spurling.

Heedless of the shouted command, Percy clapped the gun to his shoulder and pulled first one trigger and then the other. Click! Click! Both barrels were empty. He might have remembered that so careful a fellow as Jim would never leave a loaded gun standing about. But there were a half-dozen shells in a box on the shelf. Laying the gun down, he rushed back into the cabin.

Spurling realized what Percy was after. Springing into the dory, he sculled rapidly to the beach. He had almost reached the shore when Whittington dashed out of the door with the shells in his hands. He crammed two into the breech, while the ram gazed haughtily down upon him.

"Put that gun down!" shouted Jim as the dory grounded and he leaped out on the beach.

Up went the weapon to Percy's shoulder. His finger sought the trigger, but no report followed. The ram had vanished and the sky-line was unbroken.

Before the exasperated lad could decide on his next step Jim was at his side, clutching at stock and barrel with strong hands.

"Give it to me!"

There was a short scuffle, and the gun was wrenched from Percy's grasp.

"Let me alone, Spurling! I'll kill that brute before he's ten minutes older!"

"Oh no, you won't!" replied Jim, coolly.

Breaking open the weapon, he extracted the shells and dropped them into his pocket.

"How many of these did you bring out?"

"Never you mind!"

"Oh, well, I know how many I had. I can count 'em. They're too dangerous to be lying around loose where a hothead like you can get hold of 'em."

He took the gun into the cabin. In half a minute he was out again.

"Two missing! Hand 'em over, Whittington!"

"I won't!"

Three steps, marvelously quick for so deliberate a fellow, brought Spurling to the other's side. An iron grip compressed Percy's shoulder.

"Will you give 'em to me or shall I have to take 'em? Say quick!"

The strong, unwavering grasp brought Whittington to his senses. Thrusting his hand into his pocket, he brought out the shells. "Here they are!"

Jim bestowed them carefully inside his coat. His manner changed instantly.

"Now, Percy," said he, "pull yourself together! I don't wonder you were sore at the ram. What you got was enough to rile anybody; it would have set me hunting rocks myself. But you'll have to draw the line a long way this side of a gun. You can't blame the brute; it's his nature. And you can't blame us for laughing—we couldn't help it; you'd do the same in our place. The thing's over now. Forget it! Let's eat a good dinner, and all take hold on the fish this afternoon. We've made a whopping big catch, not much under three thousand pounds, I should say—enough, at any rate, to keep us all busy till dark. Let's bury the hatchet, handle and all, so deep that it'll never be dug up again! Shake on it!"

Whittington ignored Jim's outstretched hand. Trembling with humiliation and anger, he had all he could do to keep the tears from his eyes. Turning away without replying, he walked eastward along the beach to the ledges. He clambered over these until he gained a spot out of sight of the cove, then threw himself down to think. His hunger had disappeared; food would have choked him.

There he lay till the middle of the afternoon, smoking moodily. When he returned to camp at three he had decided on his course of action.

All the others were aboard the Barracouta, at work on the fish.

Spurling hailed Percy. "Want to lend a hand, Whittington?"

"No!" refused Percy, shortly.

Entering the cabin, he made a dry lunch on cold biscuit and soda-crackers, then threw himself on his bunk and began reading. The afternoon dragged on. At five Filippo came in and began to peel potatoes and slice ham for supper; soon they were frying in the spider. The smell was pleasant in Percy's nostrils.

Half an hour later in came the others, tired and hungry. The fish had been finished. All sat down at the table, Percy, uninvited, drawing up his soap-box with the rest. Nobody said anything to him, but he ate with a relish.

The meal over, Spurling turned to him with a serious face. It was plain he had something of importance on his mind.

"Whittington," said he, "I've been talking matters over with Budge and Throppy, and we're all agreed it's time we came to an understanding. Things can't go on in this way any longer. To put the matter in a nutshell, we can't afford to have you living off us and not working. You've got to do your share or quit. That's all there is to it."

Percy reddened with wrath. Nobody but John P. Whittington had ever dared to speak like that to him before.

"What do you mean by making such talk to me?" he demanded. "You needn't be afraid but you'll be well paid for every meal I've eaten in this old shack!"

"That isn't the point at all," said Spurling. "I gave your father fair warning what it would be when you came out here. We're not running any Waldorf!"

Percy gave a derisive laugh.

"And that's no dream!" he interjected, sarcastically.

Spurling paid no attention to the interruption.

"We're out here for work," he continued. "That means you as well as everybody else. I didn't count on you for much, but you haven't done even that."

"I've known for the last week you were trying to freeze me out," observed Percy. "It's been cold enough about this camp to make ice."

"Well, whose fault has it been?"

"You treat that little Dago better than you do me!"

"What of it? He's earning his salt, and a good deal more; and that's something your best friend couldn't accuse you of doing."

Percy's temper was fast getting the better of him.

"I'm not going to stop here to be kicked round by a bunch of Rubes like you," he snarled. "I won't stand for it any longer. I'll give you ten dollars to set me over on Matinicus to-night."

There was a dangerous flicker in Spurling's eyes, but his voice was steady.

"You can go, and welcome, on our next trip, day after to-morrow; but we can't break into our regular work to set you across."

"No? Say twenty, then! And that's nowhere near what it'd be worth to me to be shut of you and your whole gang!"

"I'm beginning to think I did wrong in stopping that fight at Vinalhaven yesterday. Guess you needed all you got and more, too!"

In Percy's wrathful condition the reference to the pummeling he had received from Jabe came like a dash of acid in a raw wound. A flood of fury swept away his judgment.

"You beggar!" he shouted. "You dollar-squeezer! I'll teach you to talk to me, you—!"

He flung himself on Spurling with clenched fists.

So sudden and unexpected was the onslaught that there was but one thing for Jim to do, and he did it, expeditiously and accurately. Percy went over backward and fell like a log. For a moment he lay motionless, then staggered up, feeling of his face.

"What hit me?" he inquired, dazedly.

"I did—right on the point of the jaw. Sorry I had to. Feel better?"

Percy made no reply. Walking unsteadily to his bunk, he lay down. There was no violin-playing in the cabin that night.



XI

TURN OF TIDE

At half past eight that night Camp Spurling was dark and quiet. Everybody was asleep but Percy Whittington. He lay in his bunk, wide awake and thinking hard, and his thoughts were far from pleasant.

His face was still sore as a result of his battle with Jabe. His jaw ached dully from its encounter with Jim Spurling's fist. But worse than any physical pain was the smart of his wounded pride.

Life in that cramped, tarry, fishy cabin was hard enough for a fellow who had lived at the best hotels and had the cream of everything. This painful wrenching of dollars out of the sea told sorely on his tender skin and undeveloped muscles. Yet beneath the surface he had enough of his father's stubbornness to make him stick doggedly to his lot, disagreeable though it was, if only he could have felt that he was receiving the consideration due to the son of John P. Whittington.

Spurling's blow was the straw that had broken the camel's back. Percy had endured it just as long as he could. He had reached his limit.

"I hate the whole bunch," he thought, bitterly. "Everybody's down on me, even to the dog. I won't stand it any longer. I'm going to get out to-night."

His mind once made up, he promptly began planning. He decided to take one of the boats and row up to Isle au Haut. It was a good ten miles to Head Harbor, but he felt confident he could reach it long before daybreak. Leaving the boat there, he would tramp six miles up the island and catch the early steamer for Stonington. Beyond that his plans did not go.

A flicker of light from the dying fire in the stove fell on the face of the alarm-clock ticking tinnily on the shelf. It was quarter to nine.

Percy woke to the need of acting at once. At midnight Filippo would get up to make coffee and warm the baked beans and corn-bread for Spurling and Stevens, who were to start for the hake-grounds not far from one. By that time he must be miles away—too far, at any rate, to be overtaken. Overtaken? He smiled sardonically. Not one of them, he knew, would lift a finger to prevent him from going. He could just as well set out in the daytime. But his pride shrank from the relieved faces and grudging farewells that would signalize his departure. No; it would be far better to slip away by night, without saying anything to anybody. But his going must be unobserved. It would be humiliating to be detected.

Cautiously he crept out of his bunk and pulled on his clothes, stopping apprehensively to listen for the regular breathing of his sleeping mates. But no one woke. The dying embers snapped in the stove. Nemo, slumbering on his canvas, stirred uneasily. Yet, so stealthy were Percy's movements, not even the dog's keen ears telegraphed them to his alert brain.

A few minutes sufficed for the deserter to dress and crowd his more valuable belongings into a suit-case. Noiselessly he lifted the latch and stepped outside.

It was a lovely summer night. A southwest breeze barely rippled the sheet of sapphire under the radiant stars. Tiny wavelets broke crisply on the pebbled beach. From the boulders that fringed the point came the drowsy murmur of the surf. A sheep bleated plaintively high above in the pasture; while far over the ocean to the south floated the faint, weird cry of a gull.

The tide was more than half down, and dory and pea-pod lay high and dry on the shingle. The sloop rode at her mooring in the cove. Percy hesitated. Her engine would take him to Head Harbor in less than two hours, and save him a long, hard row. But no. Her absence would interfere seriously with pulling the trawls and lose Spurling & Company a good many dollars. Bitter though his feelings were, he did not wish to cause financial loss. He decided on the pea-pod.

Ten feet of gravel lay between her stern and the water. Grasping her gunwale, Percy dragged her inch by inch gratingly down over the shingle, every sound magnified to his ears by his dread of discovery. He worked with the caution of an escaping convict. Now and then he glanced nervously toward the cabin, but from its gloomy interior came no sign that he was seen or heard. Apparently Spurling and his mates were sleeping the sleep of the dead. At the end of five minutes the pea-pod was afloat.

Percy tossed in his suit-case and clambered hastily aboard. There was no time to waste. He wished to put as much salt water as possible between himself and Tarpaulin Island before midnight.

Shipping his oars, he began to row, using infinite care lest creaking rowlock or splashing blade betray him. Gradually he drew out of the cove, and there was less need of caution. As he rounded Brimstone Point he cast one last, long look at the cabin, square and black and silent.

The remembrance of his discomforts and indignities of the last three weeks surged over him. He shook his fist at his vanishing prison.

"Good riddance!" he muttered. "Hope I'll never set eyes again on you or the bunch inside you!"

He bent to his oars with redoubled vigor, and presently a high boulder shut out the camp. In five minutes more he had rounded the point and was pulling north on the heaving Atlantic swell.

The tide was running out strongly. It came swirling round Brimstone in rips and eddies. Percy had never before realized that its force was so great. He made a hasty calculation, and was very unpleasantly surprised to discover that he would have to pull against it for fully ninety minutes ere it turned to run the other way. He began to feel less sure of reaching Head Harbor before daybreak.

"Guess I've bitten off an all-night job," thought he, disconsolately.

But there was no help for it—unless he desired to slink back to the camp he had just abandoned with such thief-like stealth. Percy set his teeth.

"Not while I've got arms to pull with!"

Before buckling to his task he glanced about. On his left rose the familiar shores of Tarpaulin. Miles to his right and almost due west the twin lights on Matinicus Rock twinkled faintly across the sea; while behind him, a little to the west of north, shone the single star of Saddleback, a good four leagues away. The dark-blue summer sky, unmarred by the slightest cloud-fleck, was brilliant with constellations.

It was a night of nights for an astronomer or a poet, but Percy was neither. He had no eyes for the splendor that overhung him. Ten long, watery miles must be traversed before he could beach his pea-pod in the little haven behind Eastern Head. Would his arms stand the strain?

His muscles were harder and stronger than they had been in the middle of June. Likewise, his grit had strengthened with his physique.

"I'll make Head Harbor before light, if it kills me!"

Turning, he scanned the starry sky, and by means of his scanty knowledge of astronomy identified the Great Dipper. Its pointers located the North Star. Under it he knew lay Isle au Haut, now a low, black ridge on the horizon, east of Saddleback Light.

Percy settled himself on the thwart, steeled his muscles, and gripped the oars harder. Short as his inaction had been, he could see that the tide had swept him back a trifle. It was going to be no picnic, that pull in to Eastern Head!

He threw all his strength into his arms, and again the boat made headway against the tide. By degrees Tarpaulin Island fell back. Before long it lay behind him—as he planned, forever. His anger still burned hot against Spurling and his associates.

"Treated me like a dog, the beggars! Well, who cares for 'em? Let 'em sweat out their dollars catching fish and lobsters! I'll get my cash some easier way."

The thought of money brought back the memory of his father, and with it a faint uneasiness. Up to this time, engrossed in making his escape, Percy had not troubled to look beyond the immediate future. Isle au Haut had bounded his mental as well as his optical horizon. But after that what?

Stonington ... Rockland ... Boston ... New York ... two months of living on his acquaintances ... and then—John P. Whittington!

Percy could picture the expression on the millionaire's features when he learned that his son had broken his promise and sneaked away from Tarpaulin Island, like a thief in the night. That grim face with its bulldog jaw was one any erring son well might dread, and particularly such a son as he had thus far been. John Whittington had told Percy plainly that the island was his last chance, and, whatever faults the millionaire might have, he was not the man to break his word.

For the young deserter it was liable to be out of the frying-pan and into the fire with a vengeance.

Percy had been in the frying-pan three weeks; life there, though not pleasant, had been endurable.

At any rate, he had seen the worst of it; but for his wounded pride, he could have schooled himself to withstand its hardships, for they would have been only temporary.

What the fire might have in store for him he did not know; but one thing he did know, and that was John P. Whittington!

Not unimaginably, there might be far worse places than Tarpaulin Island.

The lad's elation at his easily earned freedom vanished. The snap and vim went out of his strokes, and his speed slackened perceptibly. Though he still dragged doggedly at the oars, there was no longer any heart in his pulling.

Westward, almost in line with the beacon on Matinicus Rock, grew a fairy pyramid of twinkling lights—the Portland boat, bound for St. John. Larger, higher, brighter, nearer, until they burned, a sparkling triangle of white and red and green. Soon the steamer crossed his bow not far to the north. He could hear the rush of foam and the throbbing of her screw. Gradually she passed eastward and blended again with the horizon.

Slower and weaker fell Percy's blades, until the pea-pod was barely moving. The ebb, still running against the boat with undiminished strength, almost sufficed to hold her stationary. But, though the lad's muscles were relaxed and listless, a fierce battle was being fought out in his troubled brain.

Should he keep on or should he go back?

Go back? Return to two months more of the uncongenial drudgery from which he had been so glad to escape? Besides, he could hardly hope to drag the pea-pod up on the beach and regain his bunk without attracting the notice of somebody in the cabin. He could imagine the talk of the others when he was out of hearing.

"Started to run away, but got cold feet and sneaked back again. Hadn't the sand to carry it through! We'd better sack him when the four weeks are up."

His futile midnight sally would only result in added humiliation.

But what if he kept on? Already more than an hour had passed. It would not be many minutes now before the tide would turn. The ebb would cease running out, and the flood would set just as strongly the other way, bearing him in toward Isle au Haut. To row with it would be an easy matter.

Head Harbor before daybreak. Boston or New York the morning after. Two months or more of easy living in the same old way. After that the deluge, alias John P. Whittington.

Isle au Haut or Tarpaulin Island, which should it be? Beads of sweat started on Percy's face as he wrestled out his problem.

Far more was involved than the mere question of going north or south. He had come to the parting of the ways. His whole life hung in the balance. Floating in that frail skiff on the uneasy swell, he realized that everything depended on the direction in which he swung the prow. His future lay in his oar-blades.

Under the horizon north and west stretched the coast. He closed his eyes and saw a vision of the feverish city life he knew and loved so well—lighted streets thronged with gay crowds, human banks between which flowed rivers of velvet-shod automobiles and clanging cars; hotel lobbies and theaters and restaurants alive with men and women who had never stooped to toil; all the luxury and glare and glitter that wait upon modern wealth. This was what he was fitting himself for. What did it all amount to?

He opened his eyes and came back to the little boat, rocking gently on the undulating swells; to the lonely glory of the peaceful ocean, arched by the starry sky. A light breeze was beginning to blow from the southwest, dispersing the thin silver mist that overhung the water.

Percy glanced at his watch; it was quarter past ten, almost time for the ebb to cease and the flood to begin.

Should he keep on or go back? He must decide quickly. Already his arms were tired, and he was more than two miles north of the island. The longer he delayed his decision the harder would be his pull against the flood if he turned.

Minutes passed as he pondered, barely dipping his oars. It was slack tide now and the pea-pod just held her own. Down on the breeze floated a distant, melancholy note, the voice of the whistling buoy south of Roaring Bull Ledge, two miles from Isle au Haut. Was it an invitation or a warning?

Slowly at first, then faster, the stern of the boat swung round. The tide had turned. The flood would carry him north with but little effort on his part. Should he let himself go with it?

Percy's indecision vanished. The tide of his own life had turned, like that of the ocean; slow and doubtful though the change had been, the current was at last setting the other way. Grasping the oar-handles tightly, he whirled the head of the pea-pod southward and started again for Tarpaulin Island.



XII

PULLING TOGETHER

The next hour and a half was anything but fun for young Whittington. His mind was set on reaching Camp Spurling before the hands of the alarm-clock came together at midnight. At any cost he must be in his bunk before the others woke.

It was a long, hard row, a battle every second with the tide running against him with untiring strength. It demanded every ounce of energy Percy possessed. His back complained dully. His arms felt as if they would drop off. Time and again he decided that the next stroke must be his last, that he must lie down in the bottom of the boat and rest; but each time he tapped some hitherto unknown reservoir of power within himself, and kept on pulling.

With the stern demand on his physical forces a change was being wrought in his brain. His foolish pride, his false sense of shame at changing his hasty plan to desert, his bitter feeling toward the others, gradually disappeared. Every oar-stroke brought him not only nearer the island, but also nearer a sane, wholesome view of life itself.

His thoughts turned naturally to the group at the camp, this clean, independent, self-respecting crowd, who cared no more for his money than for the pebbles on the beach; who estimated a fellow, not by what he had, but by what he was. After all, that was the real test; Percy could not help acknowledging it.

Saddleback glimmered astern. The whistle south of Roaring Bull was growing fainter. Percy felt encouraged. He turned his head. Yes, Tarpaulin was certainly nearer. Disheartening though the pull was, he had gained perceptibly. But the southwest breeze had stiffened, adding its opposition to that of the tide.

It was now past eleven. He had decided that he must reach the cabin not later than quarter to twelve. Barely half an hour longer! His hands were blistered, his breath came in sobs, but he dragged fiercely at the oars. At last he was stemming the strong tide-rip off Brimstone Point.

The next ten minutes were worse than all that had gone before. As he surged unevenly backward and forward, the current swung the pea-pod's bow first one way, then the other. Deaf and blind to everything but the work in hand, Percy swayed to and fro. Foot by foot the boat crept round the fringing surf at the base of the bluffs.

Hands seemed to be plucking at her keel, holding her back. It was no use. They were too strong for him. All at once their grasp weakened. He glanced up with swimming eyes. He had passed the eddy, and the entrance of the cove was near. A few strokes more and the pea-pod grounded on the beach. It was twenty minutes to twelve!

Percy staggered up to the cabin. All was dark and quiet. Gently lifting the latch, he slipped inside, pulled the door to again, and stood listening. The regular breathing of his sleeping mates reassured him. Compelling himself to walk noiselessly to his bunk, he crept under his blanket without even taking off his shoes.

He had been gone three hours; and they had been the most momentous hours of his life.

Kling-ng-ng-ng-ng ...

Off went the clock. It was midnight. Muttering drowsily, Filippo slid out of his bunk, checked the alarm, and lighted a lamp. Then he busied himself with his cooking-utensils.

The last thing Percy heard was a spoon clinking against a pan. Dead tired, he turned his face to the wall and fell asleep.

It was eight in the morning before he woke. What had made his arms and back so lame and raised those big blisters on his hands? Percy remembered. He lay for a few minutes, his eyes shut. An unpleasant duty was before him, and he must be sure to do it right.

Aching in every joint, he rolled out at last and stood up stiffly. Filippo, who was washing the breakfast dishes, turned at the sound. His face was neither hostile nor friendly.

"Your breakfast in oven," said he. "Sit down and I get it."

He set before Percy a plate of smothered cod and a half-dozen hot biscuits. It was more thoughtfulness than Percy had expected.

"Much obliged, Filippo," he said, gratefully.

Filippo made no reply to this acknowledgment; but, as Percy ate, he could feel the young Italian watching him curiously. It was the first time Whittington had ever thanked him, and he did not understand it.

After he had finished eating, Percy took his plate, knife, and fork to the sink.

"Let me wash these, Filippo," he said.

"No," returned the Italian, "I do it."

But a look of surprise crossed his face. What had come over the millionaire's son?

Percy spent the rest of the forenoon on the ledges. At noon he came back to the cabin. He had steeled himself for the task before him, and he was not the fellow to do things half-way. The John P. Whittington in him was coming out.

Everybody else was in camp when he stepped inside. Lane did not look at him at all. Spurling and Stevens nodded coolly. Percy drew a long breath and launched at once into the brief speech he had spent the last three hours dreading.

"Fellows," he stammered, "I've been pretty rotten to all of you. There's no need of wasting any more words about that. Last night I took one of the boats and started to row up to Isle au Haut. But I got to thinking matters over out there on the water, and it changed my mind about a lot of things. So I came back. Jim, I want to apologize to you for what I said last night. I deserved what you gave me, and it's done me good. I want to stay here with you for the rest of the summer—if you're willing. I'll try to do my full share of the work. You can send me off the first time I shirk."

He ceased and awaited the verdict, looking eagerly from one to the other. There was a moment of silence. Surprise was written large on the faces of the three Academy men. Then Spurling stepped forward and held out his hand.

"Percy," said he, with a break in his voice, "I've always thought you had the right stuff in you, if you'd only give yourself half a chance. For one, I'll be more than pleased to have you stop. What do you say, boys?"

He glanced toward Lane and Stevens.

"Sure!" exclaimed Lane, heartily; and Stevens seconded him.

The boys shook hands all round; and they sat down to the table with good appetites. Everybody enjoyed the meal.

"Boys," said Jim as they got up at its close, "this is the best dinner we've had since we came out here."

Percy's heart warmed toward the speaker. He knew that it was not the food alone that made Jim say what he did.

It had been Percy's habit to smoke three or four cigarettes during the half-hour of rest all were accustomed to take after the noon meal. He went, as usual, to his suit-case, and this time took out, not merely one package, but all he had, including his sack of loose tobacco and two books of wrappers.

"Got a good fire, Filippo?" he inquired, approaching the stove.

A burst of flame answered him as he lifted the cover. In went the whole handful. He watched it burn for a moment before dropping the lid.

"I'm done with you for good," he said.

As Lane and Spurling started for the Barracouta to dress the fifteen hundred pounds of hake they had taken off the trawls that morning Percy joined them, clad in oilskins.

"Jim," he petitioned, "I want you to teach me how to split fish."

"Do you mean it, Percy?" asked Spurling.

"You heard what I said this noon about shirking. I'm through with dodging any kind of work just because it's unpleasant. I want to take my part with the rest of you."

"I'll teach you," said Jim.

He did, and found that he had an apt pupil. Percy worked until the last pound of the fifteen hundred was salted down in the hogshead. He discovered that it was not half so bad as it had looked, and felt ashamed that he had not tried his hand at the trick before.

"You've earned your supper to-night," observed Jim.

"Yes; but I'm glad it's something besides fish."

"You'll get so you won't mind it after a while."

That night Throppy played his violin and the boys sang. They passed a pleasant hour before going to bed.

"I'd like to go out with you to the trawls, Jim, to-morrow morning," said Percy.

"Glad to have you," responded Spurling, heartily.

Two hours before light they were gliding out of the cove in the Barracouta, bound for Medrick Shoal, four miles to the eastward.

"Percy," said Jim as the sloop rolled rhythmically on the long Atlantic swells, "I want to tell you something. I was awake the other night when you left camp. I watched you row north and come back; and I saw the hard fight you had round Brimstone. I'm glad you made a clean breast of the whole thing, even when you thought nobody knew anything about it. It showed me you intended to turn over a new leaf and play fair. You'll find that we'll meet you half-way, and more."

Percy was silent for a moment.

"Glad I didn't know you heard me go out," he remarked. "If I had I might not have had the courage to come back. Well, I've learned my lesson. From now on I'll try not to give you fellows any reason to find fault with me."

Medrick Shoal yielded a good harvest. About eighteen hundred pounds of hake lay in the pens on the Barracouta when they started for home at ten o'clock. As they took the last of their gear aboard, a schooner with auxiliary power, apparently a fisherman, approached from the eastward.

"The Cassie J.," read Spurling, deciphering the letters on the bow. "Somehow she looks natural, but I don't remember ever hearing that name before. Probably from Gloucester. Wonder what she wants of us."

The vessel slowed down and changed her course until she was running straight toward the Barracouta. One of her crew stood in the bow, near the starboard anchor; another held the wheel; but nobody else was visible.

"Where are you from, boys?" hailed the lookout, when the stranger was only a few yards off.

"Tarpaulin Island," answered Spurling.

The man put his hand behind his ear.

"Say that again louder, will you?" he shouted. "I'm a little deaf."

Jim raised his voice.

"I said we were from Tarpaulin Island."

The lookout passed the word back to the helms-man. The latter repeated it, evidently for the benefit of somebody in the cabin. Then the man at the wheel took up the conversation, prompted by the low voice of an unseen speaker below.

"How many fish have you got there?"

"Eighteen hundred of hake."

"What's that?"

Was everybody aboard hard of hearing? Jim raised his voice.

"Eighteen hundred of hake!"

"What'll you take for 'em just as they are? We'll give you fifty cents a hundred."

"Can't trade with you for any such figure as that."

"Good-by, then!"

The tip of the Cassie J.'s bowsprit was less than two yards from the port bow of the Barracouta, altogether too near for comfort.

"Keep off!" roared Spurling. "You'll run us down!"

The steersman whirled his wheel swiftly in the apparent endeavor to avert a collision. Unluckily, he whirled it the wrong way. Round swung the schooner's bow, directly toward the sloop. A few seconds more and she would be forced down beneath the larger vessel's cutwater, ridden under.