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sooner had the Midnight let go her anchor in the cove than a door opened in the topmost little house on the rocks. Carefully an old man came down to the beach, with some difficulty launched his boat, and presently was alongside.

The skipper himself took the old man's painter. "Come aboard, Mister Kippen," he said heartily.

"Thankee, captain, but not this mornin'." He hesitated perceptibly ere he put the question. "No word, captain?" There was more of inquiry in the old man's eyes than in what came from his faltering lips-worn old eyes, in which was a pitiable plea for hope. "No word yet o' the Pallas, Captain Butler ?" "None yet, Mister Kippen." "Wh-h-h- the sigh shook the old body. "Such a fine, able vessel as she was, My boy thought he was made when he got her, captain."

"And well he might, Mister Kippen." "And the proud man I was when I saw him sail out o' Carouge Cove that day. I followed him across the bay to old Weebald, you mind, in my little jack, captain, though 'twas a risin' gale and I had to lay to Lark Harbor for two days after afore it moderated so I could put back But the grand American schooners, they'll make easy work of this, I says, and warn't I proud to think of him sailin' that able American vessel! The first Bay of Islands boy that ever went master of a Gloucesterm'n. They'll few o' 'em show him the course to Gloucester, I says. Aye, I did. And-" again the eyes dulled "and no word o' him since, you say, captain? Sure there's no word?" "Well, not when we left home, Mister Kippen, though we didn't come straight from Gloucester. We stopped at St. Pierre on the way. Maybe Murray, who's just come to anchor below, has some word. He left home two days after we did."

"Did he, now? Two days? Yes, yes.

I'll drop below and see him. Thankee, captain, but not this mornin'. Ay, I could one time, and dance as I drinked, but my bitters be'n't what they were to me. No, my bitters don't taste right now; but thankee, captain, for all that."

The old man reseated himself in his little boat, resumed his oars, and was off. Captain Butler watched him until he had reached the side of Murray's vessel.

"There, he's aboard. He'll ask the same question, and Murray'll give him the same answer. Nobody with the heart to tell him the truth."

"And what is the truth, captain?"

"The truth? The whole story? Well, you must go back some little way for that— back to six weeks yesterday, when three of us were on this very spot ready to leave for Gloucester-Wesley Marrs in the Lucy Foster, old Kippen's son in the Pallas, and myself in this one. We were all of one tonnage, and there was rivalry between us to see who'd take the biggest load of herring. Each of us took on two thousand barrels salt herring, and I know I thought that for our tonnage we all had enough. Well, that night the three of us met at a dance, and after the dance there was supper and a few drinks of smuggled stuff. There was more or less talking too, you know, before the girls, and somebody remarked how deep the vessels were loaded-too deep for that time of the year. We were, as a matter of fact, pretty deep; but Wesley said: 'Deep hell! the Lucy could take another two hundred and fifty barrels and not know she had 'em.'

"Well, you know there are people in the world who are made of meanness and envy. There was a fellow there who was quite a little man when the American skippers weren't around. He'd been in the rear row for some time, but now he comes to the front again. He looks across at Wesley. 'That's good talk, captain. Could-you say you could, but would you?'

"Would? Yes, and will,' fires back Wesley. 'Have you two hundred and fifty barrels handy?'

"I will have 'em alongside in the morn

. ing.'

"Then in the afternoon they'll be aboard,' says Wesley.

"I'll have 'em there. That's certainly something like a load of herring,' goes on this chap. 'I wonder now if any of our people here would' and looks over to young Kippen.

"What's that,' asks Kippen, 'about carryin' a load of herrin'?'

"The fellow repeated what he'd said, and Kippen flares right up. Bring him another two hundred and fifty barrels and see what he'd do with them! You see, he had double reasons for it. There was the girl that he was trying to work into windward of, and making good weather of it, too, naturally-a husky, good-looking young skipper-and

VOL. XL.-50

this the night before he was to leave on what was generally reckoned a hard trip to Gloucester at this time of year. And then, too, he was the first man out of this place ever went master of a first-class American fisherman. And the natives hereabout were that proud of him! 'H-m!' they'd say, 'and so they has to come here to wild Newf'undland for skippers as well as men?' and could hardly keep from shouting, some of 'em, at our fellows as they went by. And maybe 'twas from knowing something of that spirit that Wesley Marrs was so quick to make his boast.

"Anyway, whatever Wesley Marrs says drunk he'll make good sober. So when our friend was there with any quantity of salt herring next morning, Wesley took his two hundred and fifty barrels. And you may be sure the Lucy did set something scandalous in the water when she'd got 'em on deck a good plank deeper than any vessel leaving Bay of Islands that month.

-a

461

"I misdoubt you'll ever get her home, Captain Marrs, if you meets heavy weather,' was the cheerful word of one native.

"No?' says Wesley. 'No? Well, we'll see,' and goes around with an auger plugging up her regular scuppers and boring new ones under the top rail. The natives couldn't keep their admiration to themselves when they saw it.

"Simon Kippen, the old man's son, listened to that talk for a while, and then for the honor of the Bay of Islands-and the thought of the girl, too, I guess-he said he'd stand by what he said the night before. 'What one man could do another man could do,' and also went around plugging up the regular scuppers and boring holes under his top rail.

"Tried to stop him, did Wesley. 'Now you don't need to do that, Kippen,' he says, 'just because you had a glass of liquor in you last night.'

"Why not, as well as you?' says Sim, stung you see. 'Why can't a Newf'undlander do what any American-born can do?' "Why, no reason at all why he can't, gen'rally speaking, if he's got the right stuff in him, which I know you have; but I'll tell you why, and no discredit to you, Sim, that in this partic'lar case you can't. It's true I'm no older than you, but I've been handling big fishermen ten times as long. I've been carrying sail since I was a boy 'most. I know what a vessel c'n do. I know what no man learns except by hard experience, and then he's lucky if he lives to brag about it afterward. I know just how far a vessel c'n roll down before she rolls down to stay. You don't learn that in one year, or two years, or five years of driving. And you're damn lucky if, after you've learned it, you don't get lost yourself-yourself and your vessel and all hands-some day, experimenting further. And more than that, Sim,' says Wesley. 'I've been making passages from here to Gloucester for eight or ten winters now. I know every foot of the road, and no credit to me, while this is your first passage as master.'

ing, though we all knew it might be no smiling matter soon. 'Maybe you have, Sim,' says he, smiling over at young Kippen, 'but when you're master and the whole responsibility on you alone, you get to thinking a little deeper. So if you take my advice, and no harm meant, you won't take aboard that deck-load of herring.'

"You put ashore your deck-load and I won't take mine aboard,' says Sim.

"No,' says Wesley. 'I've shipped mine it is in the papers now-and what I've shipped I'll take home or wash overboardor,' he added after a little pause, 'go down with.'

"Well, maybe I'll go down with mine, too.'

"Maybe you will, too,' says Wesley; 'but what good will that do?'

"So they put out. I warn't quite ready to sail-had to reeve a new main-sheet-and I remember I cast off-we were all three tied together-first Kippen's line, and then Wesley's.

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'Good-by!' calls out Sim to me. "Fair wind,' I answered.

"I'll see you in Gloucester,' was Wesley's word 'that's if all goes well,' he added. Wesley was always like that, adding little last words after a little study. He'd lived too long on the sea, I s'pose, to make the mistake of ever saying he'd surely do this or cert'nly do that. But Sim warn't that way. He was drunk with the pride of sailing the Pallas out of the Bay of Islands, where all his old chums could see him, and his father, too,—to say nothing of the girl he was in love with. To the dock she'd come to see him off. And there he kissed her and hopped aboard the Pallas. 'Goodby, dad,' he hollered back to the old man. 'I'll be back in a month, and maybe be in Gloucester in three or four days; certainly in a week with anything like a fair chance. Maybe somebody'll be showing you a Gloucester paper with an account of the trip in it before I get back.'

"They sailed out, and I followed next day. And, of course, what further happened to them I didn't learn till afterward. But they had it out from the beginning. They were no sooner clear of the bay, hardly into the gulf, with Kippen maybe a mile or two in the lead, than they drove into a westerly gale. And all the way down this tough west coast to Cabot's Strait they had it.

Both of 'em had on more sail than they should, more than was any mortal use to 'em; but after two days and two nights to gether, sometimes so close they could hail each other, they warn't either of 'em taking any of it in. Kippen ought to have, because -I meant to have said before-the Pallas, while as fine and able-looking a vessel as almost any man would want to see, was what's called a crooked vessel. Her deck wasn't flat enough, and she was too low in the waist-the kind that would fill up amidships and sometimes not get rid of it in time, while the Lucy's flat as a ball-room floor. That was the biggest reason why we didn't want to see Sim load too deep. But you couldn't tell Kippen there was any fault with the Pallas-he'd eat you alive.

"Well, Kippen held on, the gulf behind them, till they butted into the Atlantic and into that hard south-easter, the hardest gale. in maybe two winters. I met it two days later, and though I warn't loaded near so deep as Wesley and Kippen, I was glad enough to put into Sydney for a harbor. And I warn't carrying any whole mains'l, either. So you can imagine what weather they made of it. Loaded deep with salt herring a vessel might's well be fastened with a long rod to the bottom of the ocean. There's no lift or heave to her. The sea breaking over her gives her no chance at all. Well, the bother in a case like that—a logey cargo, a big sea, a gale of wind, and a press of canvas-is that you're most sure to get caught sooner or later and hove down; and a vessel hove down with an overload of salt herring is in a bad way. Gen'rally she don't leave you long in doubt. That's what must have happened to the Pallas with her crooked deck. Up to five o'clock that particular afternoon, after twenty-four hours in the south-easter, those on the Lucy Foster could easily make out the Pallas astern. She'd hung on well up to that time-Wesley didn't pass her till they were clear of the Newf'undland coast; but now coming on dark this day the Pallas began to drop back, and soon after, when she'd put up her lights, they could hardly be seen from the Lucy. Now all this time they'd been having desp'rate times aboard the Lucy. There was forty times they thought she was going, but somehow or other, just like her, she'd come up just in time. Then the deck-load of two hundred and fifty barrels began to loosen

up under the battering. Now it would have been a great blessing all around if the deckload had gone to all but the owners, that is, and even they'd rather lose the deck-load than the vessel and the two thousand barrels in the hold, not to speak of the crew. But Wesley wouldn't let 'em go. 'No,' he says, 'I'll get 'em home. Nobody'll have it to say in Gloucester we got scared so soon. I know Kippen. He'll try and hang on to his deck-load long's he can.' And with lines about them Wesley and his gang went into the swash and put extra lashings to the barrels on deck. By the time they got that job done 'twas good and dark, and they could barely see the staggering red light of the Pallas astern. After that they had no time for anybody but themselves. The worst of it was on them then. And it was well Wesley did get his deck-load double-griped. But tough as it was on the Lucy it must have been tougher still on the vessel that was lurching along behind them. And thinking of that, after two terrible seas had all but finished the Lucy, Wesley looked back for the lights of the Pallas again.

"Wesley looked long to where he had seen the red light before. He brushed the spray from his eyes and looked again. No light could he see. He sent men into the rigging-he was lashed to the wheel himself -and they looked back over the water. No light anywhere-nothing but what looked like a patch of foam.

"And though he dreaded it, Wesley hove to his vessel. Suppose she isn't gone, and suppose she's not hove to and he keeps her goin', he'll cert'nly have the laugh on Wesley Marrs, but what of that? We may not be a bit of use, but we'll wait here till morning.'

"Which they did. But no Pallas, not even a bit of wreckage. Like a rock she must have gone down, as a vessel loaded like that and caught wrong is bound to. Anyway, Wesley was satisfied she was gone, and next day went on his way, and after another ten days battled into Gloucester.

"Is she gone? Of course we all know she's gone. Two months ago that was. Her list was published in the Gloucester papers just before we left, but nobody here will tell that to old Kippen. He still thinks she was blown out to sea or maybe clear back into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where she is now drifting around dismantled and