The mate gave a groan.

"He can't do it!"

At that very instant Percy roused to activity. Even before the ledge was entirely clear he was leaning over his father, knife in hand. It was useless to attempt to extricate the rope-end from the crack in which it was caught; the only thing to do was to cut it. Percy stooped quickly. Already the next sea was curling over his head. He made a savage assault upon the rope.

Slash! Slash! Twice his arm rose and fell. The billow was breaking down over him when he leaped erect and flung up his hand.

"Pull!" yelled Jim.

Just as the flood boiled over the ledge the chair and its senseless burden jerked away. Percy grasped the lashings and was towed along behind his father. Dread overcame him as he felt the limpness of the older man's body.

Through the eddying tide ... up over the slippery rocks ... and presently Jim and the mate were unfastening the bonds that held the insensible millionaire in the boatswain's chair. They carried him up near the beacon and laid him down on Percy's oil-clothes.

"He's breathing!" said the mate. "He'll come round all right. You'll know what to do for him. I'll go back and help get the other men off. Their lives mean just as much to their people as his does to you."

Working with Budge and Throppy, he took in the slack of the hawser, and soon the chair was dancing back to the yacht. Meanwhile Jim and Percy were working over Mr. Whittington, and before long he recovered his senses. With a groan he half raised himself.

"Where am I?"

"You're all right, Dad!"

"Percy!"

Both father and son showed a depth of feeling Jim would hardly have credited them with possessing.

"You don't need me here any longer," he said. "I'll go down and help pull the others ashore. Throw these oil-clothes of mine over your father, Percy, and make him comfortable, and as soon as the rest are safe we'll carry him to camp."

"What's that?" growled the millionaire. "Carry me? I guess you don't know the Whittingtons, young man!"

His jaw set and he rose somewhat unsteadily to his feet.

"Come on, Percy! Where's that camp?"

Walking slowly, the father leaning on his son's shoulder, the two disappeared in the darkness. Jim watched them for a few seconds, then started down over the ledges. The last half-hour had raised his estimation of the Whittington stock considerably above par.

Then for a time, engrossed in life-saving, he forgot everything else. At last all the men were landed safely. It was none too soon, for the yacht was now almost down on her side; and it was plain she would pound to pieces before very long.

Rescuers and rescued sought the cabin, where a good fire and hot coffee awaited them. Whittington, senior, clad in dry clothing, lay in Percy's bunk. Filippo was bustling to and fro to supply the wants of his numerous guests. His eyes fell upon a dark-haired, olive-skinned young man in the rear of the shipwrecked group, and the cup he was carrying clattered on the floor.

"Frank!" he cried. "Fratello mio!"

The brothers flung themselves into each other's arms. The Whittington family was not the only happy one in Camp Spurling that night.



XXIV

CROSSING THE TAPE

There was little sleep on Tarpaulin, either for rescuers or rescued, until the small hours of the morning. The cabin was crowded to its utmost capacity, as the fish-house was too cold for the drenched, wearied men. Filippo kept a hot fire going until long after midnight, and served out coffee galore. During his intervals of leisure he and Frank conversed in liquid Sicilian.

Outside, the storm roared and the surf boomed on the ledges about Brimstone; beyond in the blackness lay the wrecked Barona, hammering to pieces.

Gradually conversation ceased and the camp grew quiet. The boys and their unexpected guests, sandwiched closely together on the floor and in the bunks, drifted off into fitful slumber. But John P. Whittington's eyes remained wide open.

He was outstretched in Percy's bunk. His clothes hung drying before the stove, and he had on an old suit of Jim's, as nothing that Percy wore was large enough to fit his father's square, bulky figure. Beside him lay his son, sound asleep. John P. marveled at his regular breathing. Occasionally he touched the lad with his hand.

All his thoughts centered about Percy. He could not but feel that this brown, wiry fellow who had saved his life was a stranger to him. He could see with half an eye that a great change had come over the boy during the summer; he had grown quieter, stronger, far more manly.

Yes, Percy had stuck. John Whittington had only half believed that he could or would; and he had spent a good many valuable hours worrying over what he should do with his son if he didn't stick. The result showed that all those hours had been thrown away; but somehow the millionaire couldn't feel very bad about the waste.

He began to wonder if Percy might not have done better in the past if his father had put in a little more time with him personally and spent less in mere money-making. He had tried to shift his responsibility off on somebody else, had hired others to do what he should have taken pains to do himself. That was a big mistake; John P. Whittington could see it plainly now. And it had come near being a pretty costly error for him, for Percy. Well, those days were over. Percy had turned squarely about and was doing better. Whittington, senior, determined to do better, too.

Little by little the gale blew itself out. By daybreak the sky was clear and the wind had gone down, but the high rollers still wreaked their wrath on the shattered yacht and thundered on the point. A fiery sun shot its red rays over the slumberers in the crowded cabin. Filippo roused yawningly, built the fire, and busied himself about breakfast.

Soon everybody was astir. The millionaire's clothes were now dry, and he dressed with the others. Save for a slight stiffness and a few bruises, he was all right.

After breakfast he went up on Brimstone with Percy and the others to take a look at the Barona. The steel hull lay on its side on the foaming reef, a battered, crumpled shape, sadly different from the trim yacht that had left New York so short a time before. A miscellaneous lot of wreckage was swashing in the surf at the base of the point, and Jim and some of the crew were salvaging what they could; but it was not very much.

Standing in safety on the promontory in the sunlight of the pleasant morning, John P. Whittington gazed long at the wreck.

"Well," he remarked at last to the captain, who stood beside him, "I guess I see where I'm out fifty or seventy-five thousand dollars. Might as well take my medicine without a whimper. It was all my fault. You wanted to run into Portland when the storm was making up, but I thought we'd better try for some port nearer the island. I've gotten so into the habit of having men do as I want them to that I thought the wind and sea would do the same. But I've learned they won't. It's been an expensive mistake, and it came altogether too near being more expensive still. It's up to me to foot the bills. I'll make it all right with you and the crew and Sadler."

The sea was going down rapidly. A council was held. The Rockland boat would leave Matinicus at half past one, and, as Jim felt that the Barracouta could easily make the run to the island, it was decided to send the crew back to New York that very day. The captain and the mate arranged to remain on Tarpaulin until a wrecking-tug from Boston should arrive.

Mr. Whittington, yielding to the persuasions of Percy and the invitation of the other boys, consented to take the first vacation of his life and stop with them a week or ten days, when their season on the island would close.

While the crew were preparing to embark, Filippo approached Jim with his newly found brother.

"I like to go with Frank," he said.

"Sorry to have you leave, Filippo," returned Jim. "But I know just how you feel, and I don't blame you a bit."

He called Stevens and Lane aside. Presently the latter went into the cabin and reappeared with a roll of bills. Jim handed them to the Italian.

"Here's one hundred dollars, Filippo, your share for your summer's work. You've earned it fairly. If there's anything more coming to you, after we figure up, I'll send it on. What will your address be? We hope to see you again some time."

Filippo was overcome. Tears of gratitude filled his eyes as he stammered his thanks. It was arranged that letters in the care of the Italian consul at Boston would always be forwarded to him.

Jim and Throppy took the departing party over to Matinicus on the Barracouta, getting them there in ample time for the Rockland steamer. The sloop was back at Tarpaulin by four o'clock.

Meanwhile John P. Whittington had started on his vacation. Though his time ran into thousands of dollars a week, he felt he could profitably spend a little of it in getting acquainted with his boy. One of the first things his keen eyes noted was the absence of the cigarettes.

"Knocked off, eh, Percy? For how long?"

"For good, Dad!"

The millionaire suppressed a whistle; something had certainly struck Percy.

The next morning, his sturdy figure garbed in oilskins, he started out with his son and Jim for Clay Bank. He had to acknowledge that rising at midnight was a little early, even for a man accustomed to work as hard as he had always done.

Out on the shoal he was a silent but interested spectator while the trawl was being pulled and the fish taken aboard. An old swell was running, and he speedily discovered that seasickness was another thing his will could not master. That afternoon he watched Percy skilfully handle the splitting-knife and later do his part in baiting the trawl.

On the morning following he went out lobstering, and found as much to interest him as on the day before. Everything was new to him. He discovered that even a man experienced in big business can learn some things from boys. Soon his sleep at night was as sound as his son's.

He made a trip to Matinicus in the Barracouta, and talked prices with the superintendent of the fish-wharf and the proprietor of the general store.

"Have a bottle of lemon, Dad?" invited Percy.

Mr. Whittington was on the point of refusing; he did not care for soda. On second thought, however, he drank it soberly.

Percy appreciated his father's acceptance of the proffered courtesy.

"It's the first time my money ever bought anything for you."

The experience was a novel one for them both.

Just after light one morning the wrecking-tug from Boston appeared. A brief examination of the Barona's hull by a diver showed that the havoc wrought by the sea and rocks had been so great that but little of value could be saved. So the tug started back that very afternoon, and the captain and the mate of the yacht went with her.

The weather was now much cooler, and the boys were glad that their stay was to be short. Wild geese were honking overhead in V-shaped lines on their way south. Mr. Whittington accompanied the others on a gunning trip to Window Ledge, and came back with a dozen coots. He smacked his lips over the coot stew and dumplings prepared by Jim. Throppy dismantled his wireless and packed up his outfit to send away.

On their last Thursday at Tarpaulin Uncle Tom Sprowl came in on the smack with Captain Higgins. He had boarded the Calista at York Island. Everybody, including Nemo and Oso, was glad to see Uncle Tom. His rheumatism was fully cured and he was spry and chipper. He was more than satisfied with what the boys had accomplished during the summer, and he planned to continue lobstering after their departure.

He noted the change in Percy.

"Told Jim your son needed salting," he confided to Mr. Whittington. "He's all right now."

The afternoon before they were to leave the island Roger reckoned up his accounts. They showed that after Uncle Tom's share had been deducted, Spurling & Company had a thousand dollars to divide. Of this, one hundred dollars had already been paid to Filippo.

Lane handed Percy one hundred and fifty dollars.

"I don't want him to take that," objected Mr. Whittington.

"We shouldn't feel right if he didn't," said Jim.

"Dad," spoke up Percy, "I want it. I've earned it. Look at those hands and arms. It's the first money I ever had that you didn't give to me. I'm going to have one of the bills framed behind glass."

"He's earned it, fast enough," corroborated Jim. "Let him take it, Mr. Whittington. We'll all feel better about it if you will."

So the millionaire gave his consent, with the mental reservation that in some way he would make it up to the others later.

"What are you going to do with all that wealth, Percy?" he asked. "It won't keep you very long in gasolene."

"Send half of it to Filippo for his brother Frank," replied Percy, promptly. "He lost about all he had when the Barona was wrecked."

Later that afternoon Mr. Whittington took Jim aside out of Percy's hearing.

"Honestly, between us, how has the boy done this summer?"

"I wouldn't ask to have anybody take hold any better than he has since the middle of July."

The millionaire looked gratified.

"I'm more than pleased at the way things have turned out, and I don't know how I can ever repay you. Can't I help you somehow in money matters?"

Jim shook his head decidedly.

"No, thank you, Mr. Whittington. As I told you at the beginning of the summer, we're making our own way. Percy is entitled to every cent we've paid him, and I can honestly say we're glad he's been with us."

A half-hour afterward Mr. Whittington found his son alone.

"How about those college conditions, Percy?" he asked.

"Just finished my work on 'em before the wreck, Dad. I'm ready to take my exams the minute I strike college. It's been a hard pull, harder even than the fishing and lobstering, and it's kept me hustling; but I believe I've won out. Studying isn't so bad. All you've got to do is to make up your mind to get your lessons, and then get 'em."

"That's so in other things besides studying, Percy. You'll find it out later on."

"I guess I don't need to tell you," continued his son, "how much I owe to Jim Spurling and the others. They're the whitest bunch I ever ran with, and I wouldn't have missed my summer with them for anything."

"Something different from what you felt three months ago, eh, Percy? Remember our talk at Graffam Academy, Commencement night?"

"Rather guess I do! And, believe me, I sha'n't forget it in a hurry. By the way, there's one fellow I owe a good deal to that I haven't told you about yet."

He related to his father the story of his two encounters with Jabe. The older man listened with grim but satisfied attention.

"Licked him at last, did you? If you hadn't, I should want you to look him up and do it now. It's a Whittington habit to carry through what you begin. Well, Percy, you've certainly made good."

A glimmer of pride, the first he had ever shown in his son, crossed his face.

"I blamed you for junking your auto. Now I've gone and junked a yacht that'll cost me more than fifty times as much. Well, there's no fool like the old fool! But it's been worth it."

He gave his son a look in which affection mingled with pride.

"It was quicksilver, kill or cure; and I'm mighty glad it's been cure."

THE END