What Thomas had really done did not occur to him, and his one idea was to get to the neighboring village as soon as possible and ascertain just what had taken place.

His dory was beached alongside the pier where the Charming Lass had lain for the past week. Now, as he approached it, he suddenly stopped, rooted in his tracks.

The Charming Lass was gone.



CHAPTER IX

ON THE COURSE

"All dories aboard? All hands set tops'ls! Jimmie Thomas, ease your mainsheet! Now, boys, altogether! Yo! Sway 'em flat! Yo! Once more! Yo! Fine! Stand by to set balloon jib!"

It was broad daylight, and the early sun lighted the newly painted, slanting deck of the Charming Lass as she snored through the gentle sea. On every side the dark gray expanse stretched unbroken to the horizon, except on the starboard bow. There a long, gray flatness separated itself from the horizon—the coast of southern Nova Scotia.

There was a favorable following wind, and the clean, new schooner seemed to express her joy at being again in her element by leaping across the choppy waves like a live thing.

While the crew of ten leaped to the orders, Code Schofield stood calmly at the wheel, easing her on her course, so as to give them the least trouble. Under the vociferous bellow of Pete Ellinwood, the crew were working miracles in swiftness and organization.

The sun had been up two hours, and now, as Schofield glanced back at the wake that foamed and bubbled behind them, his eyes fell upon the white sails of a vessel far astern. Even at the distance, it was plain that she was of schooner rig, and probably a fisherman.

"Wonder who she is?" asked Code, pointing her out to Ellinwood.

"Don't know. Thought perhaps you'd seen her before, skipper. I've had my eye on her for an hour. Fisherman, likely; you'll see 'em in all directions every day afore we're through."

The explanation was simple and obvious, and it satisfied Schofield. He promptly forgot her, as did every one else aboard the Lass. And reason enough. The cook, sticking his head out of the galley, bawled:

"Mug-up! First ta-a-able!" and the first table made a rush below.

When the five men sat down it was the first time they had been able to relax since the evening before, when, without lights, and under headsails only, the Charming Lass had stolen out between the reefs of Freekirk Head to sea.

"Wal, boys, I cal'late we're safe!" ejaculated Ellinwood with great satisfaction. "The Lass is doin' her ten knot steady, an' I guess we'll have left Cape Sable astern afore the sleepy heads at home find out what's become of us."

"You saved the day, Pete. If it hadn't been for you I would never have got beyond St. John's." It was Code who spoke.

"And you pretty near spoiled what I did do," rumbled Pete.

"How's that?" interrupted Thomas interestedly. "I don't know everything that happened to you fellers. I was busy at the time givin' a friend of ours a joy-ride. Tell me about it!"

"It wasn't me that nearly broke up the show, Pete," protested Code. "It was mother. Of course, when Jimmie was taking her over to Castalia in his dory he told her what was in the wind. They found me at the Pembroke place, and we all went into Pembroke's ice-house, where I was to stay until after dark. Then ma started in to find out everything.

"She allowed it wasn't honorable for me to run away when the officer or lawyer was after me. She said it proved that I was guilty, and thought I ought to stay and be served with his paper. If I wasn't guilty of anything, it could be proven easily enough, she said. Poor, honest mother! She forgot that the whole matter would take weeks, if not months, and that all that time I would be idle and discontented, and spending most of my time before boards of inquiry.

"I suppose it will look queer to a lot of people at the Head because I've gone. They'll say right off: 'Just as we thought! All this talk that has been going around is true,' and put me down for a criminal that ought to go to jail. That's what mother said, and the worst part of leaving her now is that she will have to stay and face the talk—and the looks that are worse than talk.

"But, Jimmie, I couldn't do it. Grande Mignon is in too bad a hole. She needs every man who owns a schooner or a sloop or a dory to go out and catch fish and bring 'em home. The old island's got her back against the wall, and I felt that when all the trouble and danger were over for her I would go to St. John's, and let those people try and prove their case.

"They can't prove anything! But that doesn't say they won't get a judgment. I'm poor and unknown, and ignorant of law. The company is a big corporation, with lawyers and plenty of money. If somebody there is after me I haven't a chance, and they will gouge me for all they can get. You, Jimmie, and Pete know that this is so, and it was for all these reasons that I wouldn't stand my ground and let that feller serve me.

"Ma is dependent on me, and when I have sold fifteen hundred quintals of fish she will have enough to carry her along until that trouble is over. So I'm going out after the fifteen hundred quintals. Now, that's my story. We've heard Jimmie's; but how did you manage everything so well, Pete?"

Ellinwood was flattered and coughed violently over the last of his victuals.

"Hey!" yelled some hungry member of the second half. "If you fellers eat any more you'll sink the ship. Get up out o' there an' give yer betters a chance!" Ellinwood rolled a forbidding eye toward the companionway.

"Some clam-splitter on deck don't seem to know that in this here packet the youth an' beauty is allus considered fust," he rumbled ominously. No reply being forthcoming, he turned to Code.

"When ol' Bige Tanner come to me shakin' like a leaf an' said they was a feller on the steamer that would attach yer schooner an' all that ye had, because of some business about the sinkin' of the ol' May, I says to myself, sez I:

"'Pete,' I sez, 'we don't allow nothin' like that to spoil our cruise an' keep the skipper ashore.' Now, Mignon isn't very big, an' I knew he would git you in a day or two if you didn't go back into the forest and hide. But I cal'lated you wouldn't want to do that, an' so I figgered the only way to beat that lawyer was to fool him before he got fair started on his search.

"I knowed you was in Castalia, an' so I thought your mother better get you some clothes an' bring 'em there. I found out that Nat Burns had taken the feller to Mis' Shannon's boardin'-house, an', knowin' that Jimmie was livin' there, I got an idee. Jimmie's told about that already. The feller bit, an' that was the end of him.

"But that wasn't the wust of it. I knew we had to get out the same evenin' if we was to git out at all, so what did I do but get Bill Rockwell here to hitch up his big double buckboard an' go out after the five men that weren't on the job.

"He had to drive clear to Great Harbor for one, but he got back with all hands about seven o'clock. Everybody in town was at supper, an' didn't see us when we clumb aboard the Lass. When it was pitch-black we cast off the lines, an' she drifted out on the ebb tide, which just there runs easy a knot an' a half. Then we got up our headsails so as to get steerage-way on her, and bless my soul if the blocks made a creak! Might have been pullin' silk thread through a fur mitten, for all the noise.

"I was afraid fer a minute that the flash of Swallowtail Light would catch her topm'sts, but it didn't, and after an hour we were outside and layin' in sixteen fathom off Big Duck. The tide there runs three knot, and, with our headsails an' the light air o' wind, we just managed to hold her even.

"Of course, you fellers know the rest. As soon as Jimmie landed his passenger on Long Island he came out an' straight south to where we was. I had told Jimmie to tell Code in the afternoon where to meet us; and so, when it was black enough, the skipper got into his motor-dory and came out, too.

"When they climbed aboard we got up sail and laid a southwest course to round Nova Scoshy; an' here we are, nearin' Cape Race already, and dummed proud of ourselves, if I do say it."

"Proud of you, Pete, you old fox," said Schofield, getting up from the table with a sigh of immense relief. "Come on; let the second half in."

"All right, skipper," said Pete, rising to his great height and wiping his mouth with the back of his huge hand. "But wait! I almost fergot this!"

He unpinned the pocket of his waistcoat and drew forth the flimsy sheet of paper that he had picked up when Templeton had mistakenly tried to serve him.

Briefly he told the skipper its history and handed it to him. Schofield's eyes opened wide as he saw that the paper was that of the Dominion Cable office in Freekirk Head, and he read:

"To A. TEMPLETON, "Marine Insurance Company, "St. John's, N.B.

"Come at once with summons for Cody Albert Schofield and attachment for schooner Charming Lass, as per former arrangements.

"BURNETT."

For a moment the signature puzzled him, and Ellinwood, grinning, stood watching his puzzled efforts to solve it.

"Skipper, if it was a mule it would kick you in the face," he remarked. "If you can't see Nat Burns in that, I can. And now you've got an idea just who's at the bottom of this thing."

Code Schofield went aft to his cabin companionway, and prepared to go below and open his log. Kent took the wheel, and Ellinwood lurched about with a critical eye upon the lashings, sheets, and general appearance of the deck.

Schofield, remembering the schooner that had attracted his eye before, looked astern for her. She had gained rapidly upon them in the half-hour he had been below. Now he could see her graceful black hull, the shadows in the great sails, and the tiny men here and there upon her deck.

"What a sailer!" he cried in involuntary admiration. "She must be an American!"

It was clear that the other schooner, even in that moderate breeze, must be making the better side of twelve knots. Schofield gave her a final admiring glance and went below.



CHAPTER X

A MYSTERY

"AUGUST 29:

"Clear. Wind W.S.W., canting to W. Moderate breeze. Knots logged to twelve, noon, 153. Position, 20 miles south, a little east of Cape Sable. End of this day."

Code closed the dirty and thumb-worn, paper-covered ledger that was the log of the Charming Lass and had been the log of the old May Schofield for ten years before she went down. It was the one thing he had saved. He had been on deck, taken his sextant observation, and just completed working out his position.

As he closed the old log his eye was caught by a crudely penned name near the bottom of the paper cover. The signature was Nellie Tanner's, and he remembered how, a dozen years ago, while they were playing together in the cabin of the old May, she had pretended she was captain and owned the whole boat, so that Code would have to obey her orders.

As he looked he caught the almost obliterated marks of a pencil beneath Nellie's name, and, looking closer, discovered "Nat Burns" in boyish letters.

For a moment he scowled blackly at the audacious words, and then, laughing at his foolishness, threw the book from him. Then slowly the scowl returned, and he asked himself seriously why Nat hated him so.

That there had always been an instinctive dislike between them as boys, everybody in Freekirk Head knew, and several vicious fights to a finish had emphasized it.

But since coming to manhood's estate Code had left behind him much of the rancor and intolerance of his early youth, and had considered Nat Burns merely as a disagreeable person to be left heartily alone.

But Burns had evidently not arrived at this mature point of self-education. In fact, Burns was a good example of a youth brought up without those powers of self-control that are absolutely necessary to any one who expects to take a reasonable position in society even as simple as that of Freekirk Head.

Code remembered that Nat and his father had always been inseparable companions, and that it was due to this father more than any one else that the boy had been spoiled and indulged in every way.

Michael Burns had risen to a position of considerable power in the humble life of the island. From a successful trawler he had become a successful fish-packer and shipper. Then he had felt a desire to spread his affluent wings, gone in for politics, and been appointed the squire or justice of the peace.

In this position he was commissioned by the Marine Insurance Company of St. John's as its agent and inspector on Grande Mignon Island. In his less successful days he had been a boat-builder in Gloucester and Bath, and knew much of ship construction.

For more than half a year now Code had been unable to think of Michael Burns or the old May Schofield without a shudder of horror. But now that Nat was suddenly hot on the trail of revenge, he knew he must look at matters squarely and prepare to meet any trap which might be laid for him.

It seemed evident that the first aim in Nat's mind was the hounding of the man who had been the cause of his father's death; for that death had occurred at a most opportune time for the Schofields.

The heavy insurance on the fifty-year-old May was about to run out, and it was almost a certainty that Burns would not recommend its renewal except at a vastly increased premium.

As a matter of fact, on a hurried trip that Code had taken, he had picked up Burns himself at St. John's, the inspector coming for the purpose of examining the schooner while under sail in a fairly heavy seaway.

All the island knew this, and all the island knew that Code was the only one to return alive. The inference was not hard to deduce, especially as the gale encountered had been one such as the May had lived out a dozen times.

Had not all these things been enough to fire the impulsive, passionate Burns with a sullen hatred, the next events would have been. For Code received his insurance without a dispute and, not long afterward, while in Boston for the purpose, had picked up the almost new Charming Lass from a Gloucester skipper who had run into debt.

Code now saw to what Nat's uncontrolled brooding had brought him, and he realized that the battle would be one of wits.

He got up to go on deck. He had only turned to the companionway when the great voice of Pete Ellinwood rumbled down to him.

"Come on deck, skipper, an' look over this schooner astern of us. There's somethin' queer about her. I don't like her actions."

Code took the steps at a jump, and a moment later stood beside Ellinwood. The Lass was snoring along under full sail.

The stranger, which at eight o'clock had been five miles astern, was now, at noon, less than a mile away.

Code instinctively shot a quick glance at the compass. The schooner was running dead east.

"What's this, Ellinwood?" demanded the skipper sharply. "You're away off your course."

"Yes, sir, and on purpose," replied the mate. "I've been watchin' that packet for a couple of hours back and it seemed to me she was a little bit too close on our track for comfort. 'What if she's from St. John's?' I sez to myself. 'Then there'll be the devil to pay for the skipper.'

"So, after you'd got your observation and went below I just put the wheel down a trifle. I hadn't been gone away from her five minutes when she followed. It's very plain, Code, that she's tryin' to catch us."

A sudden feeling of alarm took possession of Schofield. That she was a wonderful speed craft she had already proven by overhauling the Lass so easily. The thought immediately came to him that Nat Burns, on discovering his absence, had sent the lawyer with the summons to St. John's, hired a fast schooner, and set out in pursuit.

"Maybe it was only an accident," he said. "She may be on the course to Sable Island. Give her another trial. Come about and head for Halifax."

"Stand by to come about," bawled Ellinwood.

Two young fellows raced up the rigging, others stood by to prevent jibing, and the mate put the wheel hard alee. The schooner's head swung sharply, there was a thunder and rattle of canvas, a patter of reef points, and the great booms swung over. The wind caught the sails, the Charming Lass heeled and bore away on the new course.

The men in the stern watched the movements of the stranger anxiously.

Ten minutes had hardly elapsed when she also came about and headed directly into the wake of the Lass. Schofield and Ellinwood looked at each other blankly.

"Are you goin' to run fer it, skipper?" asked the mate. "I'll have the balloon jib and stays'l set in five minutes, if you say so."

Code thought for a minute.

"It's no use," he said. "They'd catch us, anyway. Let 'em come up and we'll find out what they want. Take in your tops'ls. There's no use wasting time on the wrong course."

Under reduced sail the Lass slowed, and the pursuing vessel overhauled them rapidly. With a great smother of foam at her bows she ducked into the choppy sea and came like a race horse. In half an hour she was almost abreast on the port quarter. A man with a megaphone appeared on her poop deck and leveled the instrument at the little group by the wheel.

"Heave to!" he bawled. "We want to talk with ye."

"Heave to!" ordered Code, and the Charming Lass came up into the wind just as the stranger accomplished the same maneuver. They were now less than fifty yards away and the man again leveled his megaphone.

"Is that the Charming Lass out of Freekirk Head?" he shouted.

"Yes."

"Captain Code Schofield in command?"

"Yes."

"Bound to the Banks on a fishin' cruise?"

"Yes."

"All right; that's all I wanted to know," said the man, and set down the megaphone. He gave some rapid orders to the crew, and his vessel swung around so as to catch the wind again.

Code and Ellinwood looked at one another blankly.

"Hey there!" shouted Schofield at the top of his voice. "Who are you and what do you want?" The skipper of the other schooner paid no attention whatever, and Schofield repeated his question, this time angrily.

He might as well have shouted at the wind. The stranger's head fell off, her canvas caught the breeze, and she forged ahead. A minute later and she was out of earshot.

"Look for her name on the stern," commanded Code. He plunged below into the cabin and raced up again with his glasses. The mysterious schooner was now nearly a quarter of a mile away, but within easy range of vision.

Code fixed his gaze on her stern, where her name should be, and saw with astonishment that it had carefully been painted out. Then he swung his glasses to cover the dories nested amidships, and found that on them, too, new paint had obscured the name. He lowered the glasses helplessly.

"Do you recognize her, Pete?" he asked. "I know most of the schooners out of Freekirk Head and St. John's, but I never saw her before."

"Me neither," admitted the mate, with conviction. "I wonder what all this means?"

Code could not answer.



CHAPTER XI

IN THE FOG BANK

"SQUID ho! Squid ho! Tumble up, all hands!"

Rod Kent, the old salt who had for the past hour been experimenting over the side, leaned down the main cabin hatch and woke the port watch. Behind him on the deck a queer marine creature squirmed in a pool of water and sought vainly to disentangle itself from the apparatus that had caught it.

The shout brought all hands on deck, stupid with sleep, but eager to join in the sport.

The squid is a very small edition of the giant devilfish or octopus. It has ten tentacles, a tapered body about ten inches long, and is armed with the usual defensive ink-sac, by means of which it squirts a cloud of black fluid at a pursuing enemy, escaping in the general murk.

"How'd ye ketch him?" cried all hands, for the advent of squid was the most welcome news the men on the Charming Lass had had since leaving home four days before. It meant that this favorite and succulent bait of the roaming cod had arrived on the Banks, and that the catches would be good.

"Jigged him," replied Kent laconically. He disengaged the struggling squid from the apparatus and examined the latter carefully. It was made of a single cork, through the lower edge of which pins had been thrust and bent back like the flukes of an anchor. To it was fastened a small shred of red flannel, the whole being attached to a line with a sinker.

In five minutes Code had unearthed from an old shoe-box in his cabin enough jigs to supply all hands, and presently both rails were lined with men hauling up the bait as fast as it was lured to close proximity by the color of the red flannel. Once the creatures had wrapped themselves around the cork a sharp jerk impaled them on the pins, and up they came.

But not without resistance. Just as they left the water they discharged their ink-sacs at their captors, and the men on the decks of the Lass were kept busy weaving their heads from side to side, to avoid the assault.

It was near evening of the second day after the mysterious schooner had hailed them and sailed away. Since that time they had forged steadily northeast, along the coast of Nova Scotia. At last they had left Cape Breton at the tip of Cape Breton Island behind them and approached the southern shores of Newfoundland and that wonderful stretch of shoals called the Grand Banks.

Southeast for three hundred miles from Newfoundland extends this under-sea flooring of rocky shelves, that run from ninety to five fathoms, being most shallow at Virgin Rocks.

In reality this is a great submarine mountain chain that is believed at one time to have belonged to the continent of North America. The outside edge of it is in the welter of the shoreless Atlantic, and from this edge there is a sheer drop into almost unsounded depths. These depths have got the name of the Whale Hole, and many a fishing skipper has dropped his anchor into this abyss and earned the laughter of his crew when he could find no ground.

Along the top and sides of this mountain range grow vegetable substances and small animalcules that provide excellent feeding for the vast hosts of cod that yearly swim across it. For four hundred years the cod have visited these feeding grounds and been the prey of man, yet their numbers show no falling off.

To them is due the wealth of Newfoundland, the Miquelon Islands, Nova Scotia, Labrador, and Prince Edward Island.

The first manifestation of the annual visit is the arrival of enormous schools of caplin, a little silvery fish some seven inches long that invades the bays and the open sea. Close upon them follow the cod, feeding as they come. The caplin last six weeks and disappear, to be superseded in August by the squid, of which the cod are very fond.

Up until fifty years ago mackerel were caught on the Banks, and large quantities of halibut, but the mackerel disappeared suddenly, never to return, and the halibut became constantly more rare, until at last only the cod remained.

Aboard the Charming Lass the squid "jigging" went on for a couple of hours. Then suddenly the school passed and the sport ended abruptly.

But the deck of the schooner was a mass of the bait, and the tubs of salt clams brought from Freekirk Head could be saved until later.

Rockwell, who had been looking out forward, suddenly called Code's attention to a flock of sea-pigeons floating on the water a mile ahead. As the skipper looked he saw the fowl busily diving and "upending," and he knew they had struck the edge of the Banks; for water-fowl will always dive in shoal water, and a skipper sailing to the Banks from a distance always looks for this sign.

An hour later, when the cook had sent out his call for the first half, Code made Ellinwood stay on deck and bring the schooner to an anchorage after sounding.

The sounding lead is a long slug, something like a window-weight, at the bottom of which is a saucer-shaped hollow. The leadsman, a young fellow from Freekirk Head, took his place on the schooner's rail outside the forerigging. The lead was attached to a line and, as the schooner forged slowly ahead, close-hauled, the youth swung the lead in ever-widening semicircles.

"Let your pigeon fly!" cried Pete, and the lead swung far ahead and fell with a sullen plop into the dark blue water. The line ran out until it suddenly slackened just under the leadsman. He fingered a mark.

"Forty fathoms!" he called.

Five minutes later another sounding was taken and proved that the water was gradually shoaling. At thirty fathoms Pete ordered the anchor let go and a last sounding taken.

Before the lead flew he rubbed a little tallow into the saucer, and this, when it came up, was full of sand, mud, and shells, telling the sort of bottom under the schooner.

Pete called Code, and together they read it like a book—favorable fishing ground, though not the best.

While the second half ate, the first half took in all canvas and reefed it with the exception of the mainsail. This was unbent entirely and stowed away. In its place was bent on a riding sail, for until their salt was all wet there would be very little occasion for any sort of sailing, their only progress being as they ambled leisurely from berth to berth.

"Dories overside!" sung out Code. "Starboard first."

A rope made fast to a mainstay and furnished with a hook at its end was slipped into a loop of rope at one end of the dory. A similar device caught a similar loop at the other end.

One strong pull and the dory rose out of the nest of four others that lay just aft of the mainmast. A hand swung her outboard and she was lowered away until she danced on the water.

Jimmie Thomas leaped into her, received a tub of briny squid, a dinner-horn, and a beaker of water, besides his rectangular reels with their heavy cord, leads, and two hooks.

"Overside port dory!" came the command, and Kent was sent on his way. Thus one after another the men departed until on board the Lass there remained only the cook and a boy helper. Code, as well as Ellinwood, had gone out, for they wished to test the fishing.

These dories were entirely different propositions from the heavy motor-boats that the men used almost entirely near the island. They were light, compact, and properly big enough for only one man, although they easily accommodated two.

The motor dories of Thomas and Code were on board, nested forward, but they were of little use here, where only short distances are covered, and those by rowing.

The nine dories drew away from the schooner, each in a different direction, until they were a mile or more apart.

Code threw over his little three-fluked anchor. Then he baited his two hooks with bits of tentacle and threw them overboard. With the big rectangular reel in his left hand, he unwound as the leads drew down until they fetched bottom and the line sagged. Unreeling a couple more fathoms of line, he cast the reel aside.

Then he hauled his leads up until he judged them to be some six feet off the bottom and waited.

Almost instantly there was a sharp jerk, and Code, with the skill of the trained fisherman, instantly responded to it with a savage pull on the line and a rapid hand-over-hand as he looped it into the dory. The fish had struck on. The tough cord sung against the gunnel, and at times it was all the skipper could do to bring up his prize, for the great cod darted here and there, dove, rushed, and struggled to avert the end.

Thirty fathoms is a hundred and eighty feet, and, with a huge and desperate fish disputing every inch of the way, it becomes a seemingly endless labor. But at last Code, straining his eyes over the side, caught a glimpse of quick circles of white in the green and reached for the maul that was stuck under a thwart.

Two more heaves and the cod, open-mouthed, thrashed on the surface. A smart rap on the head with the maul and he came into the dory quietly. There were little pink crabs sticking to him and he did not seem as fat as he should, although he topped the fifty-pound mark.

"Lousy!" said Code. "Lousy and hungry! It's good fishing."

With a short, stout stick at hand he wrenched the hook out of the cod's mouth, baited up, and cast again. The descending bait was rushed and seized. This time both hooks bore victims.

When there were no speckled cod on the hooks there were silvery hake, velvety black pollock, beautiful scarlet sea-perch that look like little old men, and an occasional ugly dogfish with his Chinese jade eyes.

When the dogfish came the men pulled up their anchors and rowed a mile or so away, for where the dogfish pursues all others fly. He has the shape and traits of his merciless giant brother, the tiger-shark, with the added menace of a horn full of poison in the middle of his back instead of a dorsal fin; an evil, curved horn, the thrust of which can be nearly fatal to a man.

The bottom of the dory became covered with a flooring of liquid silver bodies that twined together and rolled with the roll of the dory.

At five o'clock Code wound his line on the reel (he usually used two at a time, but one had been plenty with such fishing), and started to pull for the distant Charming Lass. He was now fully five miles from her, and his nearest neighbor was Bill Kent, three miles away. All hands were drawing in toward her, for they knew they must take a quick mug-up and then dress down until the last cod lay in his shroud of salt.

The schooner lay to the northeast of Schofield, and as he bent to his work he did not see a strange, level mass of gray that advanced slowly toward him. From a distance to the lay observer this mass would have looked like an ordinary cloud-bank, but the experienced eyes of a fisherman would have discerned its ghastly gray hue and its flat contour.

All the afternoon there had been a freshening breeze, and now Schofield found himself rowing against a head sea that occasionally slapped over the high bow of the dory and ran aft over the half ton of fish that lay under his feet.

He had not pulled for fifteen minutes when the whole world about him was suddenly obscured by the thick, woolly fog that swirled past on the wind. It was as though an impenetrable wall had been suddenly built up on all sides, a wall that offered no resistance to his progress and yet no egress.

He immediately stopped rowing and rested his oars, listening. No sound came to him except the slap of the increasing waves and the occasional flap of a wet fish in its last struggles.

He carried no pocket compass, and the light gave no hint of the direction of the sun. In the five minutes that he sat there the head of his dory swung around and, even had he known the exact compass direction of the Charming Lass before the fog, he would have been unable to find it.

The situation did not alarm him in the least, for he had experienced it often before. Reaching into the bow, he drew out the dinner-horn that was part of the equipment of the dory and sent an ear-splitting blast out into the fog.

It seemed as though the opaque walls about him held in the sound as heavy curtains might in a large room; it fell dead on his own ears without any of the reverberant power that sound has in traveling across water.

Once more he listened. He knew that the schooner, being at anchor, would be ringing her bell; but he hardly hoped to catch a sound of that. Instead, he listened for the answering peal of a horn in one of the other dories. Straining his ears, he thought he caught a faint toot ahead of him and to starboard.

He seized his oars and rowed hard for several minutes in the direction of the sound. Then he stopped, and, rising to his feet, sent another great blast brawling forth into the fog. Once more he listened, and again it seemed as though an answering horn sounded in the distance. But it was fainter this time.

A gust of wind, rougher than the others, swirled the fog about him in great ghostly sheets, turning and twisting it like the clouds of greasy smoke from a fire of wet leaves. The dory rolled heavily, and Code, losing his balance, sprawled forward on the fish, the horn flying from his hand overboard as he tried to save himself.

For a moment only it floated; and then, as he was frantically swinging the dory to draw alongside, it disappeared beneath the water with a low gurgle.

The situation was serious. He was unable to attract attention, and must depend for his salvation upon hearing the horns of the other dories as they approached the schooner. Rowing hard all the time, with frequent short pauses, he strained his ears for the welcome sound.

Sometimes he thought he caught a faint, mellow call; but he soon recognized that these were deceptions, produced in his ears by the memory of what he had heard before. Impatiently he rowed on.

After a while he stopped. Since he could not get track of any one, it was foolish to continue the effort, for every stroke might take him farther and farther out of hearing. On the other hand, if he were headed in the right direction, another dory, trying to find the schooner, might cross his path or come within earshot.

He was still not in the least worried by the situation. Men in much worse ones had been rescued from them without thinking anything of them.

But the rising wind and sea gave him something to think of. The waves found it a very easy matter to climb aboard the heavily laden dory, and occasionally he had to bail with the can in the bows provided for the purpose.

An hour passed, and at the end of that time he found that he was bailing almost constantly. There was only one thing to do under the circumstances. The gaff lay under his hand. This is a piece of broom-handle, to the end of which a stout, sharp hook is attached, and the instrument is used in landing fish which are too heavy to swing inboard on the slender fishing-line.



Code took the gaff and commenced to throw the fish over the side one at a time. He hated the waste of splendid cod, but things had now got to a pass where his own comfort and safety were at stake. Once the fish were gone, with the cleanliness of long habit, he swabbed the bottom and sides of the dory with an old rag and rinsed them with water which he afterward bailed out.

The dory now rose high and dry on the waves; But Code found it increasingly difficult to row because the water tended to "crab" his oars and twist them suddenly out of his hands.

To keep his head to the wind he paddled slowly, listening for any sound of a boat.

Another hour passed and darkness began to come down. The pearly gray fog lost its color and became black, like smoke from a burning oil-tank. He knew the sun was below the horizon. He wondered if any of the other men had been caught. If none were gone but himself, he reasoned, the schooner would have come in search of him.

So, from listening for the horn of a dory, he tried to catch the hoarse voice of a patent fog-horn that would be grinding on the forecastle head.

By this time the wind was a gale, and he knew it was driving him astern, despite his rowing. The waves were no longer the little choppy seas that the Lass had encountered since leaving Freekirk Head, but hustling, slopping hills that attacked him in endless and rapid succession. His progress was a continuous climb to one summit, followed by a dizzying swoop into the following depth.

Each climb was punctuated at the top by a gallon or so of water slopped into the dory from the crest of the wave. These influxes became so frequent that he was obliged to bail very often. Consequently he unshipped one oar and, crawling to the stern, shipped the other in the notch of the sternboard.

Here he sculled with one hand so as to keep the dory's head to the wind, and bailed with the other. Being aft, his weight caused the water to run down to him, and he could thus perform the two operations at the same time.

When pitch-blackness had come he knew that he was out of reach of the schooner's horn. His only chance lay in the fog's lifting or the passing of some schooner.

His principal concern was for the wind. It was just the time of year for those "three-day" nor'-easters that harry the entire coast of North America. When the first excitement of his danger passed he was assailed by the fierce hunger of nervous and physical exhaustion, but there was no food aboard the dory. He had, of course, the breaker of water that was part of his regular equipment; but this was more for use during a long day of fishing than for the emergency of being lost at sea.

He took a hearty drink and prepared for the long watch of the night.

By a wax match several hours later he found that it was midnight. His struggle with wind and sea had now become unequal. He found it impractical to remain longer in the stern attempting to scull. So very cautiously he set about his last defensive measure.

Taking the two oars and the anchor, as well as the thwarts, he bound them together securely with the anchor roding. This drag he hove from the bow of the dory, and it swung the boat's head into the wind. Schofield, with the bailer in one hand, lay flat in the bottom.

With the increasing sea, water splashed steadily over the sides so that his exertions never ceased. The chill of the night penetrated his soaked garments, and this, with his exhaustion, produced a stupor. The whistle of the wind and the hiss of foaming crests became dream sounds.



CHAPTER XII

OUT OF FREEKIRK HEAD

"OH, I wouldn't think of such a thing for a minute!"

Captain Bijonah Turner waved his hand with an air of finality and favored his daughter with a glare meant to be pregnant with parental authority.

"But, father, listen to reason!" cried Nellie; "here is mother to take care of the three small children, and here am I with nothing whatever to do. Be sensible and let me go along. I certainly ought to be able to help in some way."

"But," expostulated the captain, "girls don't go on fishing-trips."

"Suppose the cook should fall sick or be hurt, then I would come in handy, wouldn't I? But all this is not the real point. Things are different with us than they have ever been before; we have no home, and mother and the children have to board with Ma Sprague. If I stayed here I should be a burden, and I couldn't stand that."

Bijonah scratched his head and looked at the girl helplessly. He had yet to score his first victory over her in an argument.

"Have you asked your mother?" he queried at last, seeking his time-worn refuge.

"Yes," said she, brightening at the imminence of victory, "and she says she thinks it will be just the thing."

"All right," said Bijonah weakly; "come along then. But mind, you'll find things different. Your mother is boss of any land she puts her foot on, but once I get the Rosan past Swallowtail my word goes."

"All right, daddy dear," laughed the girl; "I know you'll be just the finest captain I ever sailed with." She kissed him impulsively and ran up-stairs to tell her mother the good news.

The departure of the fleet from Grande Mignon was a sad day in the history of the island.

The sun had hardly shown red and dripping from the sea when all the inhabitants were astir. Men from as far south as Seal Cove and Great Harbor clattered up the King's Road in rickety vehicles, accompanied by their families and their dunnage.

In Freekirk Head alone less than ten men would be left ashore. Of these, one was Bill Boughton, the storekeeper, who was to arrange for the disposal of the catch; but the others were either incapacitated, sick, or old. The five aged fishermen, who subsisted on the charity of the town, formed a delegation on one stringpiece to wave the fleet farewell.

Altogether there were fifteen boats, ten schooners, and five sloops, carrying in all more than a hundred and twenty-five men. The whole resource of the island had been expended to provide tubs of bait and barrels of salt enough for all these, let alone the provisions.

The men either shipped on shares or, if they were fearful of chance, at a fixed monthly wage "and all found," to be paid after the proceeds of the voyage were realized.

There was not a cent of Grande Mignon credit left in the world, and there was no child too small to realize that on the outcome of this venture hung the fate and future of the island.

It was a brilliant day, with a glorious blue sky overhead and a bracing breeze out of the east. Just beyond Long Island a low stratum of miasmic gray was the only shred of the usual fog to be seen on the whole horizon. In the little roadstead the vessels, black-hulled or white, rode eagerly and gracefully at their moorings, the bright sun bringing out the red, yellow, green, blue, and brown of the dories nested amidships.

At seven o'clock the steamer Grande Mignon blew a great blast of her whistle, cast off her lines, and cleared for St. Andrew's and St. Stephens. Tooting a long, last salute, she rolled out into Fundy and out of sight around the point.

For these men breakfast was long past, but there were the myriad last details that could not be left undone; and it was fully eight o'clock before the last dory was swung aboard and the last barrel stowed.

Then there came the clicking of many windlasses and the strain of many ropes, and to the women and girls who lined the shore these noises were as the beatings of the executioner's hand upon the cell-door of a condemned man.

For the first time they seemed to realize what was about to happen. The young girls and the brides wept, but those with children at their skirts looked stonily to the vessel that bore their loved ones; for they were hardened in the fear of death and bereavement, and had become fatalists.

The old women shook their heads, and if tears rolled down their faces they were the tears of dotage, and were shed perhaps for the swift and fleeting beauty of brides under the strain of their first long separation.

Of these last one stood apart, a shawl over her gray hair and her hands folded as though obedient to a will greater than her own. In all the color and pageant of departure May Schofield wondered where her son might be, the son whom she felt had run away from his just responsibilities. Two nights ago he had gone, and since that time the little cottage had seemed worse than deserted.

Somehow the story of the solicitor and his visit went swiftly around the village, and since that time Code's mother had been the shrinking object of a host of polite but evidently pointed inquiries.

To most of these there was really no adequate reply, and the good woman had grown more hurt and more shrinking with every hour of the day. Now, with little orphan Josie at her side, she came out to see the departure of the fleet.

Suddenly there came the squeaking of blocks and the rattle and scrape of rings as foresails were rushed up at peak and throat. Headsails raced into position, and, with the anchors cat-headed; the vessels, with their captains at the wheels or tillers, swung into the wind and began to crawl ahead.

Behind them, as they forged toward the passage, lay the gray scimitar of stony beach half a mile long. Beyond it were the white, contented-looking cottages built along the road, and back of all rose the vivid green mountains, covered with pine, tamarack, and silver birch, above whose tops at the line of the summit there appeared three terrific, puffy thunder-heads.

As they moved toward Flag Point the gaily colored crowds moved with them past the post-office, the stores, the burned wharfs, and the fish stands.

Captain Bijonah Tanner, by right of seniority, led the way in the Rosan as commodore of the fleet. He stood to his tiller like a graven image, looking neither to right nor left, but gripping his pipe with all the strength of his remaining teeth.

He hoped that his triumph would not be lost upon his wife. Nor was it, for it was a month afterward before the neighbors ceased to hear how her Bige was the best captain that ever sailed out of Freekirk Head.

At Swallowtail Bijonah rounded the point, gave one majestic wave of his hat in farewell, and put the Rosan over on the starboard tack, for the course was southeast, and followed practically the wake of Code Schofield.

One after another the schooners and sloops, closely bunched, came about as smartly as their crews could bring them—and the smartest of them all was Nat Burns's Nettie B.

Nellie Tanner, jealous for her father's prestige, could not but admire the splendid discipline and tactics that whipped the Nettie about on the tack and sent her flying ahead of the Rosan like a great seabird. Once Swallowtail was passed the voyage had begun, and the lead belonged to any one who could take it.

At last the knifelike edge of Long Island shut them out completely, and seemed at the same instant to cut the last bonds and ties that had stretched from one to another as long as vision lasted. The men felt as released from a spell. One idea rushed into their minds suddenly and became an obsession.

Fish!



CHAPTER XIII

NAT BURNS SHOWS HIS HAND

OFF Cape Sable the fleet was overhauled by a half-dozen schooners bound the same way, which displayed American flags at their main trucks as they came up.

"Gloucestermen!" said Nat Burns at the wheel of the Nettie B. "Set balloon jib and stays'l and we'll give 'em a try-out."

The men jumped to the orders, and the Nettie gathered headway as the American schooners came up. But the Gloucester craft crept up, passed, and with an ironical dip of their little flags raced on to the Banks.

Cape Sable was not yet out of sight when a topmast on the Rosan broke off short in a sudden squall. Bijonah Tanner immediately laid her to and set all hands to work stepping his spare spar, as he would not think of returning to a shipyard. Nat Burns, when he noticed the accident, laid to in turn and announced his intention of standing by the Rosan until she was ready to go on.

As these were among the fastest vessels in the fleet, the others proceeded on their way, and Nat seized the opportunity of the repairs to pay his fiancee a visit and remain to supper on the Rosan.

He found Nellie radiant and more beautiful than he had ever seen her. Protected from the cool breeze by a frieze overcoat, she stood bareheaded by the forerigging, her cheeks red, her brown eyes bright like stars, and her soft brown hair blowing about her face in alluring wisps.

He took her in a strong embrace. She struggled free after a moment, her cheeks flooded with color.

"Don't, Nat!" she cried. "Before all the men, too! Please behave yourself!"

This last a little nervously as she saw the gleam in his eyes. Suddenly (for her) all the day seemed to have lost its exhilaration. She was always glad to see Nat, but his insistent use of his fiance rights under all circumstances grated on the natural delicacy that was hers.

His ardor dampened by this rebuke, the gleam in Nat's eye became one of ugliness at his humiliation before the crew of the Rosan. He scowled furiously and stood by her side without saying a word. It was in this unfortunate moment that Nellie seized on the general topic of the day.

"Guess you'll have to get off and push the Nettie B. before you can beat those Gloucestermen, Nat," she said, teasing him.

"Say, I've heard about all I want to hear about that!" he snarled, suddenly losing control of himself as they walked back to the little cabin. The girl looked at him in hurt amazement. Never in all her life had a man spoken to her in such a tone. It was inconceivable that the man she was going to marry could address her so, if he even pretended to love her.

"Possibly you have," she returned, not without a touch of asperity; "but you know as well as I do that you will have to deal with a Gloucester-built schooner before you are through with this voyage."

In her efforts to placate him she had touched upon his sorest spot. His defeat by the American fishermen had been hard for his pride.

"I suppose you mean that crooked Schofield's boat?" he flashed back, his face darkening.

"What do you mean by that?"

They were below now in her father's little cabin, and she turned upon him with flashing eyes.

"Just what I said," he returned sullenly.

"You say things then that have no foundation in fact," she retorted vigorously. "You have no right to say a thing like that about Code Schofield."

"I haven't, eh?" he sneered, furious. "Since when have you been takin' his side against me? No facts, eh? I'll show him an' you an' everybody else whether there's any foundation in fact! What do you suppose the insurance company is after him for if he isn't a crook?"

Like all the people in Freekirk Head, Nellie had heard some of the rumors concerning Code's possible part in the sinking of the May Schofield. Nat, for reasons of his own, had carefully refrained from enlarging on these to her, and in the absorption of her wooing by him she had let them go by unnoticed. Now, for the first time, the consequences they might have in Code's life were made clear to her.

"I—I don't know," she faltered, unable to reply to his direct question. "But I know this, that all his life Code has been an honest man and one of my best friends. I grew up with him just as I did with you, and I resent such talk about him as much as I would if it were about you."

"Yes," he sneered, "he has been entirely too much of a good friend. What was he always over to your place for, I'd like to know? And, even after he knew we were engaged, what was he doin' down at Ma Sprague's that night I called? An' what did you go to his place for after the fire when I tried to get you to come to mine?"

The last question he roared out at the top of his voice, and the girl, now afraid of him, shrank back against the wall of the cabin.

She knew it was useless to say that she and Code had been like brother and sister all their lives, and that May Schofield was a second mother to her. All reason was hopeless in the face of this unreasoning jealousy. After a moment she found her speech.

"I guess, Nat," she said, "you had better go back to your schooner until you are in a different mood."

"Afraid to answer, ain't you?" he cried. "When I face you down you're afraid to answer an' tell me I'd better go away. Well, now let me tell you something. You're entirely too friendly with that crook, an' I won't have it! You're engaged to me, and what I say goes. An' let me tell you something else.

"The insurance company is after him because he sunk the May Schofield on purpose. But that ain't the worst of the things he did—"

"What do you mean?" she flashed at him.

"You'll find out quick enough, and so will he," he snarled. "I'm not saying what is goin' to happen to him, but when I'm through we'll see if your hero is such a fine specimen."

From fear to anger her spirit had gone, and now under the lash it turned to cold disdain. With a swift motion of her right hand over her left she drew off the diamond ring he had given her and held it out to him.

"Take this, Nat," she said, so coldly that for once his rage was checked. He looked stupidly at the glittering emblem of her love, and suddenly became aware of the extent to which he had driven her. The reaction was as swift as the rage.

"Please, Nellie dear," he begged, "don't do that! Take it back. Forgive me. Everything has piled up so to-day that I lost my temper. Please don't do that!"

But he had gone too far. He had shown her a new side to his character.

"No, Nat," she said calmly, but still with that icy inflection of disdain; "this has gone too far. Take this ring. Some time, when you have made amends for this afternoon, I may see you again."

"I won't take it," he replied doggedly. "Please, Nellie, forgive—"

"Take it," she flashed, "or I will throw it into the ocean!"

She had unconsciously submitted him to a final test. He was about to let her carry out her threat if she saw fit when his cupidity overcame him. He reached out his hand, and she dropped the ring into it. She stood silent, pale, and cold, waiting for him to go.

He moved away. He had reached the foot of the companionway when he turned back.

"He has brought me to this," he said so slowly and evilly that each word seemed a drop of venom. "But I'll make him pay. I'm goin' to St. John's, and when I get back it will be the sorriest day in his life and yours, too. His life won't be worth the thread it hangs on!"

With that he went up the companionway and, not noticing the greeting of Captain Tanner, dropped into his yellow dory that swung and bumped against the Rosan's side. Swiftly he rowed to the Nettie B. and clambered aboard, bellowing orders to get up sail. In fifteen minutes the schooner was on the back track under every stitch of canvas she carried.

Bijonah Tanner stared blankly after the retreating Nettie. Then, knowing that his daughter had been with Nat, dropped down into the little cabin.

He found Nellie seated in the chair by the little table, and weeping.



CHAPTER XIV

A DISCOVERY

Taken aback as he had been by the strange doings of Nat's schooner, his dismay then was a feeble imitation of the panic that smote him now. It had long been a favorite formula of Bijonah's that "A schooner's a gal you can understand. She goes where ye send her, an' ye know she'll come back when ye tell her to. She's a snug, trustin' kind of critter, an' she's man's best friend because she hain't got a grain o' sense. But woman!"

Here Bijonah always ended, his hands, his voice, and his sentence suspended in mid air.

Now he was baffled completely. Here was a girl who was deeply in love, crying. He tiptoed cautiously to the deck again and stole forward to the galley as though he had been detected in a suspicious action.

After a while the storm passed, and Nellie sat up, red-eyed and red-nosed, but with a measure of her usual tranquillity restored.

"Idiot!" she told herself. "To howl like that over him!"

Nellie finally regained her poise of mind and remembered that she had been at the point of writing a letter to her mother (to be mailed by the first vessel bound to a port) when Nat had interrupted her.

The table at which she sat was a rough, square one of oak, with one drawer that extended its whole width. She opened the drawer and found it stuffed with an untidy mass of paper, envelopes, newspapers, clippings, books, ink, and a mucilage-pot that had foundered in the last gale and spread its contents over everything.

Such was her struggle to find two clean sheets of paper and a pen that she finally dumped the contents of the drawer on top of the table and went to the task seriously. The very first thing that came under her hand was a heavy packet.

Turning it face up, she read, with surprise, a large feminine handwriting which said:

Mr. Code Schofield, kindness of Captain B. Tanner

Letter enclosed.

At the right-hand side of the envelope was this:

5——10s 10——5s 50——1s ———— $150

Nellie Tanner stared at the envelope. It was the handwriting that held her. She had seen it before. She had once been honorary assistant treasurer of the Church of England chapel, and it suddenly came to her that this was the handwriting that had adorned Elsa Mallaby's checks and subscriptions.

She knew she had solved the problem the instant the answer came. Elsa had been to Boston to school, and the fact was very evident. She sat and stared at the black letters, flexing the packet filled with bills.

"Why should Elsa Mallaby be sending money to Code Schofield?"

Everybody in Freekirk Head knew that Code Schofield went up to Elsa Mallaby's to dinner occasionally. So did other people in the village, but not so often as he. There had been a little gossip concerning the two of them, but, while Code was an excellent enough fellow, it was hardly probable that a rich widow like Elsa would throw herself away on a poor fisherman. They forgot that she had done so the first time she married, and that she had the sea in her blood.

These shreds of gossip returned to Nellie now with accrued interest, and she began to believe in the theory of fire being behind smoke.

She also remembered the night of the mass-meeting in Odd Fellows Hall when Code had made his suggestion of going to the Banks. There had flashed between Elsa's velvet-dark eyes and Code's blue ones a message of intimacy of which the town knew nothing. Every one saw the look, and nearly every one talked about it, but they did not know that only a couple of nights before Elsa had been the one to put Code on guard against his enemies, and that he was more than grateful.

"I'd just like to know what's in that letter so as to tease him the next time we meet," she said gaily to herself. She was now out of all mood for writing her letter home, and, stuffing the contents of the drawer back into place, she returned the latter to the table and went on deck.

The sea was running higher. The new topmast was up, and within half an hour the Rosan heeled to the wind and plowed her way northward after the remainder of the fleet.



CHAPTER XV

THE CATCH OF THE ROSAN

At the forecastle head of the Rosan stood a youth tolling the ship's bell. The windlass grunted and whined as the schooner came up on her hawser with a thump, and overhead a useless jib slatted and rattled.

The youth could scarcely see aft of the foremast because of the thickness of the weather, but he could hear what was going on. There was a thump, a slimy slapping of wet fish, and a voice counting monotonously as its owner forked his forenoon's catch into the pen amidships.

"Forty-nine," said the voice. "All right, boys, swing her in." And a moment later the dory, hauled high, dropped down into her nest. Immediately there was a slight bump against the side of the schooner, and the slapping and counting would begin again.

"Eighty-seven, and high line at that!" said the next man. "I'll bet that's the only halibut on the Banks, and he's two hundred if he's an ounce."

The great, flat fish was raised to the deck by means of the topping haul that swung in the dories.

Bijonah Tanner, who stood by the pen watching the silver stream as it flowed over the side into the pen, mussed his beard and shook his head. The fish were fair, but not what should be expected at this time of year. He would sail along to another favorable anchorage. This was his first day on the Banks and two days after Nellie's discovery of Elsa's packet.

It was only noon, but Bijonah was speculating, and when he saw the fog bank coming he refused to run any risk with his men, and recalled them to the schooner by firing his shotgun until they all replied to the signal by raising one oar upright.

It must not be thought that it was the fog that induced Bijonah to do this. Dorymen almost always fish when a fog comes down, and trust to their good fortune in finding the schooner. Bijonah wanted to look over the morning's catch and get in tune with the millions under his keel.

By the time the last dory was in, the pile of fish in the pen looked like a heap of molten silver.

The men stretched themselves after their cramped quarters, and greeted the cook's announcement with delight.

"You fellers fix tables fer dressin' down while the fust half mugs up," said Tanner. "Everybody lively now. I cal'late to move just a little bit. The bottom here don't suit me yet."

He went down from the poop and walked the deck, listening between clangings of the bell for any sound of an approaching vessel. The crew worked swiftly at dressing and salting the catch.

"Haul up anchor," he ordered when the work was done.

The watch laid hold the windlass poles and hauled the vessel forward directly above her hook. Then there was a concerted heave and the ground tackle broke loose and came up with a rush.

Under headsails and riding sail the Rosan swung into the light air that stirred the fog and began to crawl forward while the men were still cat-heading the anchor. The youth who had been ringing the bell now substituted the patent fog-horn, as marine law requires when vessels are under way.

With his eyes on the compass, Turner guided the ship himself. They seemed to move through an endless gray world.

For an hour they sailed, the only sounds being the flap of the canvas, the creaking of the tiller ropes, and the drip of the fog. Tanner was about to give the word to let go the anchor when, without warning, they suddenly burst clear of the fog and came out into the vast gray welter of the open sea.

Tanner suddenly straightened up, and slipping the wheel swiftly into the becket, he ran to the taffrail and looked over the side.

"Good God!" he cried. "What's this?"

Not fifty feet away lay a blue dory, heavy and loggy with water, and in the bottom the unconscious figure of a man.

A second look at the face of the man and Tanner cried:

"Wheelan and Markle, overside with the starboard dory. Here's Code Schofield adrift! Lively now!"

There was a rush aft, but Tanner met the crew and drove them to the nested boats amidships.

"Over, I say!" he roared.

The men obeyed him, and Wheelan and Markle were soon pulling madly to the blue dory astern.

When they reached it one man clambered to the bow and cut the drag rope that Code, in his extremity, had thrown over nearly two days before. Then, fastening the short painter to a thwart in their own craft, they hauled the blue dory and its contents alongside the Rosan.

Code Schofield lay with his eyes closed, pale as wax, and seemingly dead. In his right hand he still gripped convulsively the bailing-can he had used until consciousness left him.

Man, boat, and all, the dory was hauled up and let gently down on the deck. Then the eager hands lifted Schofield from the water and laid him on the oiled boards.

"Take him into my cabin," ordered Tanner. "Johnson, bring hot water and rags. Cookee, make some strong soup. If there's any life in him we'll bring it back. On the jump, there!"

"Wal," said one man, when Code had been carried below, "I thought my halibut was high line to-day, but the skipper beat me out in the end."



CHAPTER XVI

A STAGGERING BLOW

"Here is something my father just asked me to give you."

Nellie held out to Code the packet that she had discovered in the skipper's drawer several days before. Code, seated on the roof of the cabin in the only loose chair aboard the Rosan, and wrapped in blankets, took the sealed bundle curiously.

He looked at the round, feminine handwriting across the envelope, and failed to evince any flash of guilt or intelligence.

It was three days after Code's rescue by the Rosan and the first that he had felt any of his old strength coming back to him.

For the first twenty-four hours after being revived he did nothing but sleep, and awoke to find Nellie Tanner beside his bunk nursing him. Since then it had been merely a matter of patience until his exhausted body had recuperated from the shock.

For once Nellie had command of the Rosan, and everything stood aside for her patient. The delicacies that issued from the galley after she had occupied it an hour, and that went directly to Code, almost had the result of inciting a mutiny among all hands; terms of settlement being the retirement of the old cook and installation of this new find.

Code ripped open the packet. He stared in amazement at the yellow bills. Then he discovered the letter and began to read it. Despite the healthy red of his weather-beaten face, a tide of color surged up over it.

Nellie turned her head away and looked over the oily gray sea to where the men of the Rosan were toiling in their dories. In the distance there was a sail here and there, for the Rosan was slowly overhauling the fleet from Freekirk Head.

Code stole a swift glance at her, and forgot to read his letter as he studied the fresh roundness and beauty of her face. He vaguely felt that there was a reserved manner between them.

"The letter is from Mrs. Mallaby," he said.

"Yes? That is interesting."

The girl's cool, level eyes met his, and he blushed again.

"She has a good heart," he stumbled on, "and always thinks of others."

"Yes, she has," agreed the girl without enthusiasm, and Code dropped the subject.

"How did your father happen to have this for me?" he asked, after a pause.

"Well, you know, you surprised everybody by leaving the Head before the rest of the fleet. Elsa had it in mind to give you this packet, she says, before you left. But when you went so suddenly she asked father to give it to you. She said she expected the Rosan would catch the Lass on the Banks. At least, this is the yarn dad told me."

"She seems to know considerable about the Banks and the ways of fishermen," he said, with an unconscious ring of enthusiasm in his tone.

"Yes; you'd think she pulled her own dory instead of being the richest woman in New Brunswick."

Code looked at his old sweetheart in amazement. He had never seen her so disagreeable. His eye fell upon her left hand.

For a moment his mind did not register an impression. Then all of a sudden it flashed upon him that her ring was gone.

"Oh, that explains everything!" he said to himself. "She has either lost it or quarreled with Nat, and it's no wonder she is unhappy."

Nellie was saying to herself: "The letter must have been very personal or he would have told me about it. He never acted like this before. There is something between them."

Suddenly astern of them sounded the flap of sails, rattle of blocks, and shouted orders. They turned in time to see a schooner come up into the wind all standing.

She was clothed in canvas from head to foot, with a balloon-jib and staysail added, and made her position less than a hundred yards away.

Schofield gazed at the schooner curiously. Then he leaned forward, his eyes alight. There were certain points about her that were familiar. With a fisherman's skill he had catalogued her every point. He looked at the trail-board along her bows, and where the name should have been there was a blank, painted-out space.

It was the mystery schooner!

Once more all the fears that had assailed Code's mind at her first appearance returned. He was certain that there was mischief in this. But he sat quiet as the vessel drifted down upon the anchored Rosan.

As he looked her over his eyes were drawn aloft to a series of wires strung between her topmasts. Other wires ran down the foremast to a little cubby just aft of it.

"By the great squid, they've got wireless!" he said. "This beats me!"

At fifty yards the familiar man with the enormous megaphone made his appearance.

"Ahoy there!" he roared. "Any one aboard the Rosan seen or heard anything of Captain Code Schofield, of the Grande Mignon schooner Charming Lass?"

Code rose out of his chair, took off his hat ironically, and swung it before him as he made a low bow.

"At your service!" he shouted. "I was picked up three days ago, adrift in my dory. What do you want with me?"

This sudden avowal created a half panic aboard the mysterious schooner, and the man astern exchanged his megaphone for field-glasses. After a long scrutiny he went back to the megaphone.

"Congratulations, captain!" came the bellow. "When are you going to rejoin the Lass?"

"As soon the Rosan catches her," replied Code, and then, exasperated by the unexpected maneuvers of this remarkable vessel, he cried: "Who are you and what do you want that you chase me all over the sea?"

Instantly the man put down the megaphone and gave orders to the crew, and in five minutes she was on her way north into the very heart of the fleet.

"I don't know who she is or why she is or who is aboard her," he told Nellie, after recounting to her the previous visitation of the schooner. "She reminds me of a nervous old hen keeping track of a stray chick. Pretty soon I won't be able to curse the weather without being afraid my guardian will hear me. I say guardian, and yet I don't know whether she is friendly or merely fixing up some calamity to break all at once. You know I have enemies. She may be working for them."

The girl could offer no solution, nor could Bijonah Tanner, who had witnessed the incident from the forecastle head where he was smoking and anticipating the wishes of the cod beneath him. He had walked aft, and the three discussed the mystery.

"Ever see her before, captain?" asked Code.

If there was any man who knew schooners that had fished the Banks or the Bay of Fundy, it was Bijonah Tanner.

"Don't cal'late I ever did. I've never saw jest that set to a foregaff nor jest that cut of a jumbo-jib afore."

Tanner watched the schooner as she scudded away.

"Mighty big hurry, I allow," he remarked. "But, Jiminy, doesn't she sail! There ain't hardly an air o' wind stirrin' and yet look at her go! She's a mighty-able vessel."

It was about four o'clock the next afternoon that the Rosan crept up in the middle of the fishing fleet. She had made a long berth overnight, dressed an excellent morning's catch, and knocked off half a day because Bijonah did not feel it right to keep Code longer away from his vessel.

And Tanner managed the thing with a good eye to the dramatic. When he reached the rear guard of the fleet he began to work his vessel gracefully in and out among the sloops and schooners.

Code, seated in his chair on the cabin roof, did not realize what was going on until the triumphal procession was well under way.

Through the fleet they went—a fleet that was wearing crape for him—and from every vessel received a volley of cheers.

The Charming Lass greeted him with open arms. Pete Ellinwood swung him up from the transferring dory with a great bellow of delight, and he was passed along the line until, battered, joyous, and radiant, he arrived exhausted by the wheel, where he sat down.

When they all had drunk to the reunion from a rare old bottle, heavily cobwebbed, Code told his story. Then, while the men dressed down, he walked about, looking things over and counting the crew on his fingers.

"Pete!" he called suddenly, and the mate left the fish-pen.

"Where's Arry Duncan?"

"Wal, skipper, I didn't want to tell you fer fear you had enough on yer mind already, but Arry never come back the same day you was lost."

"My God! Another one! I wondered how many would get caught that day!"

"An' that ain't all. He had your motor-dory with him—the one you caught us with out of Castalia."

"How did he have that? I gave orders the motor-dories weren't to be used."

"Wal, cookee an' the boy—they was the only ones aboard—tell it this way: Arry he struck a heavy school fust time he lets his dory rodin' go, an' most of his fish topped forty pound. In an hour his dory was full, and it was a three-mile pull back.

"When he got in he argued them others into givin' him the motor-dory, 'cause it holds so much more. They helped him swing it over, an' that's the last they see of him."

"But, if he had an engine, you'd think he could've made it back here or run foul of somebody or somethin'."

"Yas, you would think so; but he didn't, the more peace to him," was Ellinwood's reply.

"The poor feller!" said Code. "I'm sorry for his wife. Anything else happen while I was gone, Pete?"

"Now, let me think!" The mate scratched his head. "Oh, yes! Curse me, I nearly forgot it! You know that quair schooner that chased us down one day an' asked the fool questions about you?"

"Yes. I saw that same schooner again yesterday. She asked more fool questions."

"You did!" cried Ellinwood in amazement. "I didn't see her, but I heard her, an' I got a message from her for you. It was night when they come up on us an' hailed.

"They said they had news of you, an' would we send a dory over. Would we? They was about six over in as many minutes. But they wouldn't let us aboard. No, sir; kept us off with poles an' asked for me.

"When I got in clost they told me the Rosan had found you, and handed me an envelope with a message inside of it. Just as I was goin' away there came the most awful clickin' an' flashin' amidships I ever saw—"

"Wireless," said Code.

"Wal, I've heard of it, but I never see it before; an' I come away as quick as I could."

"And the message?" asked Code curiously.

Pete laboriously unpinned a waistcoat-pocket and produced an envelope which he handed to Code. It was sealed, and the skipper tore away the end. The mystery and interest of the thing played upon his mind until he was in a tremble of nervous excitement.

At last he would know what the schooner was and why.

Eagerly he opened the message. It was typewritten on absolutely plain paper and unsigned, further baffling his curiosity. After a moment he read:

"CAPTAIN SCHOFIELD:

"Yesterday at St. Andrew's suit was filed against you for murder in the first degree upon the person of Michael Burns, late of Freekirk Head, Grande Mignon Island. Plaintiff, Nathaniel Burns, son of the deceased. There is an order out for your arrest. This is a friendly warning and no more. You are now fore-armed!"



CHAPTER XVII

TRAWLERS

Schofield stood as one stupefied, staring blankly at the fateful words.

Murder in the first degree!

Had it not been for his thorough knowledge of Nat Burns's character he would have laughed at the absurdity of the thing and thrown the message over the side.

But now he remained like one fast in the clutch of some horrible nightmare, unable to reason, unable to think coherently, unable to do anything but attempt to sound the depths of a hatred such as this.

"For Heaven's sake, what is it, skipper?" asked Ellinwood.

Code passed the message to his mate without a word. His men might as well know the worst at once. Ellinwood read slowly.

"Rot!" he snarled in his great rumbling voice. "Murder? How does he get murder out of it?"

"If I sank the old May Schofield for her insurance money, which is what every one believes, then I deliberately caused the death of the men with me, didn't I? Pete, this is a pretty-serious thing. I didn't care when they set the insurance company on me, but this is different. If it goes beyond this stage I will carry the disgrace of jail and a trial all my life. That devil has nearly finished me!"

Code's voice broke, and the tears of helpless rage smarted in his eyes.

"Steady on, now!" counseled Pete, looking with pity at the young skipper he worshiped. "He's done fer you true this time, but the end of things is a tarnal long ways off yet, an' don't you go losin' yer spunk!"

"But what have I ever done to him that he should start this against me?" cried Schofield.

Pete could not answer.

"What do they do when a man is accused of murder?" asked Code.

"Why, arrest him, I guess."

Pete scratched his chin reminiscently. "There was that Bulwer case." He recounted it in detail. "Yes," he went on, "they can't do nothin' until the man accused is arrested.

"After that he gets a preliminary hearin', and, if things seem plain enough, then the grand jury indicts him. After that he's tried by a reg'lar jury. So the fust thing they've got to do is arrest you."

"Darn it, they sha'n't—I'll sail to Africa first!" snarled Code, his eyes blazing. He strode up and down the deck.

"You say the word, skipper," rumbled Pete loyally, "an' we crack on every stitch fer the north pole!"

Code smiled.

"Curse me if I don't like to see a man smile when he's in trouble," announced Pete roundly. "Skipper, you'll do. You're young, an' these things come hard, but I cal'late we'll drop all this talk about sailin' away to furrin parts.

"Now, there's jest two courses left fer you to sail. Either we go on fishin' an' dodge the gunboat that brings the officer after you, or we go on fishin' an' let him get you when he comes. I'll stand by you either way. You've got yer mother to support, God bless her! An' you've got a right to fill yer hold with fish so's she can live when they're sold. That's one way of lookin' at it; the other's plain sailin'!"

"No, Pete; this is too serious. I guess the mother'll have to suffer this time, too. If they send a man after me I'll be here and I'll go back and take my medicine. I'll make you skipper, and you can select your mate. You'll get a skipper's share, and you can pay mother the regular amount for hiring the Lass—"

"She'll get skipper's share if I have to lick every hand aboard!" growled Ellinwood. "An' you can rest easy on that."

"That's fine," said Code gently; "and I don't know what I'd do without you, Pete."

"You ain't supposed to do without me. What in thunder do you suppose I shipped with you fer if it wasn't to look after you, hey?"

The men had finished dressing down and were cleaning up the decks. Several of them, noticing that something momentous was being discussed, were edging nearer. Pete observed this.

"Skipper," he said, "we've got four or five shots of trawl-line to pick. Suppose you and I go out an' do the job? Then we can talk in peace. Feel able?"

"Never better in my life. Get my dory over."

"That blue one? Never again! That's bad luck fer you. Take mine."

"All right. Anything you say."

Several hands made the dory ready. Into it they put three or four tubs or half casks in which was coiled hundreds of fathoms of stout line furnished with a strong hook every two or three feet. Each hook was baited with a fat salt clam, for the early catch of squid had been exhausted by the dory fishing. There was also a fresh tub of bait, buoys, and a lantern.

A youth aboard clambered up to the cross-trees, gave them the direction of the trawl buoy-light, and they started. It was a clear, starlit night with only a gentle sea running and no wind to speak of. There was not a hint of fog.

The Charming Lass lay now in the Atlantic approximately along the forty-sixth parallel, near its intersection with the fifty-fifth of meridian; or eighty to a hundred miles southwest of Cape Race, Newfoundland, and almost an equal distance southeast of the Miquelon Islands, France's sole remaining territorial possession in the New World.

Code and Ellinwood easily found their trawl buoy by the glimmer of the light across the water. They immediately began to plant the trawl-lines in the tubs aboard the dory. The big buoy for the end of the line they first anchored to the bottom with dory roding.

Then, as Ellinwood rowed slowly, Code paid the baited trawl-line out of the tubs. As there are hooks every few feet, so are there big wooden buoys, so that the whole length of the line—sometimes twenty-five hundred feet—is floated near the surface.

When the last had been paid out, a second anchor and large buoy was fixed, and their trawl was "set." Next they turned their attention to picking the trawl already in the water.

As the line came over the starboard gunnel Code picked the fish off the hooks, passing the hooks to Pete, who baited them and threw them over the port gunnel. Thus they would work their way along the whole of the line.

Many of the hooks that came to Code's hands still had the bait with which they were set.

"Must be in the bait," he told Ellinwood. "The fish wouldn't touch it. This is no catch for five shots of trawl."

But Pete could not cast any light on the subject.

It was certainly true that the catch from the trawl-line was small enough to be remarkable, but the men were helpless to explain the reason.

For two hours they worked along the great line.

"There's a bare chance that the message from the unknown schooner might be a fake, although I can't imagine why," said Code as they were returning. "But if it is not, and the Canadian gunboat comes after me, she'll find me here, willing to go back to St. Andrew's and answer all charges. No escape and no dodging this time! And let me tell you something, Pete. If nothing comes out of this except ugly rumor that I have to suffer for, I'm going to quit minding my own business; and I'll dig up something that will drive Nat Burns out of Freekirk Head forever.

"A man of his character and nature has certainly got something he doesn't want known, and I shall bring it to light and make it so public that he'll wish he had never heard the name Schofield. By Heaven, I've reached the end of my patience!"

If there was anything Pete Ellinwood loved it was a fight, and at this declaration of war he roared encouragement.

"You'll do, skipper—you'll do! Get after him! Climb his frame! Put him out of business. An' let me help you. That's all I want."

"Everything in good time, Pete," grinned Code. "First we've got to find out how much of this is in the wind and how much is not."

Arrived at the schooner, they pitched their fish into the pen for the first watch to dress and rolled aft for the night. Code took off his coat and drew forth the packet that Elsa had given him, looked at it for a moment, and threw it upon the table.

"Why in time did she send me that?" he asked himself, his voice very near disgust. "It must have looked mighty strange to Nell for me to be getting money from Elsa Mallaby."

He stopped short in the midst of pulling off one boot. The idea had never struck him forcibly before. Now it seemed evident that Nellie's reserve might have been due to the letter.

"What a fool I was not to tell her all about it!" he cried. With one boot off he reached across to the packet under the swinging lamp and drew the letter out of it and read:

"DEAR PARTNER:

"Here is something that Captain Bijonah will hand to you when he catches the Lass. There are supposed to be one hundred and fifty dollars in this packet (I never was much of a counter, as you know). Now, dear friend, this isn't all for you unless you need it. It is simply a small reserve fund for the men of the fleet if they should need anything—a new gaff, for instance, or a jib, or grub.

"It isn't much, but you never can tell when it might come in handy. It was your good scheme that sent the men off fishing, and you left the way open for me to do my little part here at the Head. Now I want to do just this much more for the sailors of the fleet, and I am asking you to be my treasurer. When you hear of a needy case just give him what you think he needs and say it is a loan from me if he won't take a gift.

"If this is a trouble to you I am sorry, but we are all working for the good name and good times of Grande Mignon, and I hope you won't mind. Good fishing to the Charming Lass, high line and topping full! May you wet your salt early and come home again to those who are longing to see you.

"This is all done on the spur of the moment, so I have no time to ask your mother to enclose a line. But I know she sends her love. It has been a little hard for her here since you left, bless her heart; but she has been as brave as a soldier and helped me very much. We see a great deal of each other and you can rest assured I shall look after her.

"Always your old friend, "ELSA."

As Code read the last paragraph his eyes softened. It was white of Elsa to look after his mother, particularly now when there would be much for her to face regarding himself. And it was white of her to send the money for the sailors of the fleet. Even she did not know, as Code did, how nearly destitute some of the dorymen were. He would be glad to do what little work there might be in disbursing the sum.

"Sorry Nellie didn't seem interested when I began to talk about Elsa," he said to himself. "I suppose I should have told her, anyway, so there wouldn't be any misunderstanding. Well, I'll do it next time." He turned the lamp low and rolled into his bunk.



CHAPTER XVIII

TREACHERY

Next morning at breakfast, about four o'clock, Code told his crew the situation. He knew his men thoroughly and had been friends with most of them all his life.

"There's likely to be trouble, and I may be taken away, but if that happens Pete will tell you what to do. Don't sight Swallowtail until your salt is all wet. Bring home a topping load and you'll share topping."

Code did not go out that morning. Instead, he tried to shake off his troubles long enough to study the fish—which was his job on the Charming Lass.

While not a Bijonah Tanner, Code bade fair to be his equal at Bijonah's age. He came of a father with an instinct for fish, and he had inherited that instinct fully. Under Jasper he had learned much, but it was another matter to have some one on hand to read the signs rather than being cast upon his own resources.

The fish, from the trawl-line and Pete's reports of dory work, had been running rather big. This pleased him, but he knew it could not last; and he sat with his old chart spread out before him on the deck—a chart edged with his father's valuable penciled notes.

Suddenly, while in the almost subconscious state that he achieved when very "fishy," the persistent voice of the cook broke through the wall of unconsciousness.

"Smoke on the port quarter, skipper! Smoke on the port quarter, skipper!"

The phrase came with persistent repetition until Code was fully alive to its meaning and glanced over his left shoulder.

Above the line of dark blue that was the ocean, and in the light blue that was the sky, was etched a tree-shaped brown smudge.

Steamer smudges were not an unusual sight, for not fifty miles east was the northern track of the great ocean steamers—a track which they were gradually approaching as they made their berths. But a steamer smudge over the port quarter, with the Lass's bow headed due north, was an entirely different thing.

Code went below and brought up an ancient firearm. This he discharged while the cook ran a trawl-tub to the truck. It was the prearranged signal for Pete Ellinwood to come in.

As Code waited he had no doubt that smoke was from a revenue cutter or cruiser from Halifax with his arrest warrant.

There was a stiff westerly breeze, and Code, glancing up at the cloud formations, saw that there would be a beautiful racing half-gale on by noon.

"What a chance to run for it!" he thought, but resolutely put the idea from his mind.

Pete came in with a scowl on his face, cursing everything under the sun, and especially a fisherman's life. When told of the smoke smudge he evinced comparatively little interest.

"We'll find out what she is when she gets here. What I'd like to know is, what's the matter with our bait?"

"Bait gone wrong again?" asked Code anxiously, his brows knitting. "That stuff on the trawl wasn't the only bad bait, then."

"No. Everybody's complainin' this mornin'.

"Not only can't catch fish, but ye can't hardly string the stuff on the hooks. An' that ain't all. It has a funny smell that I never found in any other clam bait I ever used."

"Why, what's the matter with your hands, Pete?" cried Code, pointing. Ellinwood had removed his nippers, and the skin of his fingers and palms was a queer white and beginning to shred off as if immersed long in hot water.

"By the Great Seine!" rumbled the mate, looking at his hands in consternation.

Code made a trumpet of his hands. "Here, cookee, roll up a tub of that bait lively. I want to look at it. And fetch the hammer!"

A suspicion based upon a long-forgotten fact had suddenly leaped into his mind.

When the cook hove the tub of bait on deck Code knocked off the top boards with the hammer and dipped up a handful of the clams. Instead of the firm, fat shellfish that should have been in the clean brine, he found them loose and rotten. This time he himself detected a faint acrid odor quite different from the usual clean, salty smell. Again he dipped to make sure the whole tub was ruined. Then he looked at Ellinwood in despair.

"It's acid, Pete," he said. "My father told me about this sort of thing being done sometimes in a close race among bankers for the last load of fish. If they're all like this we're done for until we can get more."

Ellinwood looked at him in amazement, his jaw sagging.

"Well, who in thunder would do this?"

Code laughed bitterly.

"There's only one man I can think of, and that is the fellow who got my motor-dory under false pretenses. You remember how he made the cook and the boy help him get it over the side? Well, her gasoline-tank was full and her batteries new. She was ready to go two hundred miles on a minute's notice."

"But why should he do that—"

"Oh, think, Pete, think! Don't you remember? He's one of the men I went up to Castalia to get, the time that lawyer came to Freekirk Head. And he's the only man in the whole crew I don't know well. I see it all now. He sent me a note the night before asking to ship on the Lass, and I went to get him before any of the other skippers got wind of it. You don't suppose he did this thing on his own account, do you?"

"Easy, skipper, easy! What's he got against you?"

"He's got nothing against me!" cried Code passionately. "But he is working for the man who has. Do you think that stupid ox would have sense enough to work a scheme like this? Never! Nat Burns is behind this, and I'll bet my schooner on it!"

Schofield dumped the bait-tub over the deck and rolled it around, examining it. Suddenly he stopped and peered closely.

"Look here!" he cried. "Here's proof!"

With a splitting knife that he snatched out of a cleat he pried loose a tiny plug in one of the bottom boards that had been replaced so carefully that it almost defied detection.

"The whole thing is simple enough. He turned the tub upside down, cut out this plug, and inserted the acid. Then he refitted the plug and set it right side up again. It's as plain as the nose on your face."

"By thunder, I believe you're right, skipper!" said Ellinwood solemnly. "The dirty dog! Cookee, run that tub up to the truck again. We'll have to call the men in on this."

"Oh, he was foxy, that one!" said Code bitterly. "Going out in the fog that way so all hands would think he was lost! I never remembered until this minute that the motor-dory could be run. I guess she went, all right, and that scoundrel is ashore by this time."

"Had a bad name in Castalia, didn't he?"

"Oh, a little more or less that I heard of, but what's that in a fisherman? When the men come in have them go through all the bait."

Pete fired the old rifle, and the crew at work began to pull in through the choppy sea.

"Hello!" cried the mate, looking behind him. "There's something going to be doin' here in a minute. It's the cutter from Halifax, all right."

Code, his former danger forgotten for the time, glanced up. The smudge of smoke had quickly resolved itself into a stubby, gray steam-vessel with a few bright brass guns forward and a black cloud belching from her funnel. She was still some five miles away, but apparently coming at top speed.

Three miles before her, with all sails set, including staysail and balloon-job, raced a fishing schooner. There was a fresh ten-knot wind blowing a little south of west—a wind that favored the schooner, and she was putting her best foot forward, taking the green water over her bows in a smother of foam.

"Heavens! look at her go!"

The exclamation was one of pure delight in the speed.

"Maybe she's an American that's been caught inside the three-mile limit, and is pullin' away from the gunboat," remarked Pete.

That she was pulling away there was little doubt. In the fifteen minutes that elapsed after her discovery she had widened the gap between herself and her pursuer. She was now within a mile of the Lass.

"Why doesn't she shoot?"

As Code spoke a puff of white smoke thrust out from the blunt bows of the cutter, and the ball ricochetted from wave-top to wave-top to fall half a mile astern of the schooner.

"Out of range now, an' if the wind holds she'll be out of sight by nightfall," said Pete, who was moved to great excitement and enthusiasm by the contest. "Wonder who she is?"

He plunged down the companionway to the cabin and emerged a moment later with Code's powerful glasses.

But Code did not need any glasses to tell him who she was. His eye had picked out her points before this, and the only thing that interested him was the fact that her wireless was down.

It was the mysterious schooner.

He had never seen her equal for traveling, and he knew that she must be making a good fourteen knots, for the cutter was capable of twelve.

She had reached her closest point of contact with Code's vessel and had begun to bear away when Pete leveled his glasses. It was on Schofield's tongue to reveal the identity of the pursued when Ellinwood yelled:

"Good Heavens! Skipper! She has Charming Lass printed in new gold letters under her counter!"

"What?"

"As I live, Code. Charming Lass, as plain as day! What's happening here to-day? What is this?" Code snatched the glasses from Pete's hand and then leveled them, trembling, at the flying schooner.

For a time the foam and whirl of her wake obscured matters, but all at once, as she plunged down into a great hollow between waves, her stern came clear and pointed to heaven. There, in bright letters that glinted in the sun and were easily visible at a much greater distance, was printed the name:

CHARMING LASS OF FREEKIRK HEAD

"No wonder she's goin'!" yelled Pete, almost beside himself with excitement. "No wonder she's goin'! But let her go! More power to her! Yah!"

Code stood with the glasses to his eyes and watched the mysterious schooner and the pursuing vessel disappear.



CHAPTER XIX

ELLINWOOD TAKES A HAND

There were two things for Code to do. One was to sail north into Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, set seines, and catch the herring that were then schooling. The other was to run sixty miles or so northeast to St. Pierre, Miquelon, and buy bait.

Under ordinary circumstances he would not have hesitated. It would have been Placentia Bay without question. But his situation was now decidedly out of the ordinary. He was in a hurry to fill his hold with cod before the other men out of Freekirk Head; first, for the larger prices he would get; and secondly, because he yearned to come to grapples with Nat Burns.

To seine for herring would lose him upward of a week; to buy it would take less than three days, including the round trip to St. Pierre.

But the money?

Code knew that in the French island herring seldom went below three dollars a barrel, and that the smallest amount he ought to buy would be twenty-five barrels. Later on, if the fishing was good, he might send out a party to set the seines, but not now. He must buy. But the money!

Then he thought of the packet of money Elsa Mallaby had sent him. The cash was meant for any sailor who came to need it.

And the men with him were willing to fight to the last ditch and to take their lot ungrumblingly as fishermen early learn to do.

If he starved, they starved. So he decided he would not hesitate to use Elsa's money when a dozen men and their families were dependent upon him and the success of the cruise.

Thus the matter was settled and the order roared down the decks:

"Set every stitch for St. Pierre; we're going to bait up there. Lively, now!"

St. Pierre, Miquelon, is one of the quaintest towns in all of picturesque French Canada. It is on the island of the same name (there are three Miquelon islands), which is in itself a bold chunk of granite sticking up out of the ocean at a distance of some ten miles southwest of May Point, Newfoundland.

Rough and craggy, with few trees, sparse vegetation, and a very thin coating of soil, there is no agriculture, and the whole glory of the island is centered in the roaring city on its southeast side.

It is a strange city, lost in the midst of busy up-to-date Canada, with French roofs, narrow tilting streets, and ever the smell of fish. There is a good harbor, and there are wharfs where blackfaced men with blue stockings, caps, and gold earrings chatter the patois and smoke their pipes. In the busy time of year there are ten thousand men in the town and it is a scene of constant revelry and wildness.

The Charming Lass touched the port at the height of its season—early September—and, because of the shallowness of the harbor close in, anchored in the bay amid a crowd of old high-pooped schooners, filled with noisy, happy Frenchmen. There were other nationalities, too, in the cosmopolitan bay—Americans setting a new spar or Nova Scotians in on a good time.

The Charming Lass cast her anchor shortly before six o'clock, having made the run in five and a half hours with a good breeze behind. Code and Ellinwood immediately went over the side in the brown dory of the mate and pulled for the customhouse wharf. The rest of the crew were forbidden off the decks except to sleep under them, for it was intended, as soon as the bait was lightered aboard, to make sail to the Banks again.

The bait industry in St. Pierre is one more or less open to examination. It is the delight of certain French dealers to go inside the English three-mile limit, load their vessels with barrels of herring, and return to St. Pierre. Here they sell them at magnificent profit to Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Americans. And, as the British coat of arms is not stamped on herring at birth, no one can prove that they were not legally procured.

But let a Canadian revenue cutter catch a Frenchman (or American either, for that matter), dipping herring in any out-of-the-way inlet, and the owner not only pays a heavy fine, but he often loses his schooner and his men go to jail for trying to hoist sail and escape at the last minute.

Code had not reached shore before he had been accosted by fully half a dozen of these bait pirates. But he passed them, and tying his dory at the wharf, went on up the street to a legitimate firm.

Immediately the business was finished, Code and Pete Ellinwood started back to the wharf.

The main street was ablaze with lights. Cafes, saloons, music halls, catch-penny places—in fact, every device known to separate sailors from their wages was in operation. The sidewalks were crowded with men, jabbering madly in the different dialects of their home provinces (for many come here from France yearly).