From keel to kite; how Oakley Rose became a naval architect

Preface

“ Breathes there a boy with soul so dead ” that he does not love a boat — from the days of his first toy-yacht, hove down on pond or sea-pool ?

And so I have thought that there lives not the boy so dull of imagination that he cannot love a fishing vessel, not only in the stormy happenings of her wild career on southerly shoal, or Arctic fishing ground, but also through the scenes of her growth and launching, from grass-green keel to topsail kite — the “ light kites ” being, as fishermen say, “ the real life of the vessel.”

And here I would gratefully express my indebtedness to certain kite-flying skippers: notably, to Captain Charles Purdy, for valuable collaboration on a trip to Georges Shoal ; to Skipper Edmund Peterson, also; and to “ Captain” John Marshall, for experiences on the longer “ fletching ” voyage, away up north, in pursuit of the gamy halibut, amid ice floe and berg, under perpetual daylight.

To them, and to those youthful heroes ashore, who hang on to ambition’s kite against a head wind of difficulty, this story is dedicated.

Isabel Hornibrook.

Gloucester, Mass., June i, 1908.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. A Homing “ Fisherman ” i

II. On the Trestle * . 22

Chapter I A Homing “ Fisherman ”

O, go it, Playseeders! Get a wig- 1 T gle on you — you Punkin-eaters !

She’s crawling up on you; she’ll fetch by Eastern Point before you ! ”

This semi-articulate shout, amiably jeering, had the effect of an harangue to space, there being no one at hand, on the sun-gilt beach, to hear or answer, as it burst irrepressibly from the lips of a boy of sixteen.

A youthful enthusiast, he stood at the golden junction of sands and tide, fairly flirting his body, from the waist up — as a butterfly fans its wings above a flower — while he gloated over the excitement of some distant spectacle!

“ She’s creeping up, Pie-eaters ! She’ll be walking away from you, in another few minutes ! ” he broke forth again, with lonely gusto.

“ You — you’re a big, blunt-nosed three-master ! ” apostrophizing, now, the passing vessel at whose crew he had been launching, unheard, his jeering pleasantries. “A three-master you are

— a fine vessel, for a coaster — not any lazy old hooker ! But — but you’re not in it with the dog that’s picking up her heels, behind you! May as well make up your minds to that, you Punkin-peddlers! ” letting out his voice on wings of laughter, at the end, as if men on the deck of the large “ down-east ” coaster, hustling for harbor, with all sail on, could hear him!

The exciting spectacle over which he gloated was the tail-end of an impromptu race between that big three-master and a “ fisherman, walking home,” likewise, with every rag on her.

The ' latter, the “ crawling-up ” fishing schooner, was the fleet dog of the boy’s speech

— the admired of his heart! Naturally enough, seeing that he was Oakley Rose, son of Captain Norman Rose, master mariner of Gloucester, who, for years, had “ gone skipper ” of a fishing vessel, until he was lost on the dreaded Cultivator

— a northeasterly shoal of Georges’ bank — • when Oak was but seven years old!

On his mother’s side the boy had the blood of three generations of Gloucester sea-lords in his veins.

But, though Oakley’s sympathies were all with the smaller, two-masted schooner, which had

A HOMING “ FISHERMAN ”

been steadily creeping up on her rival, ever since the two hove in sight, three-quarters of a mile from the beach where he stood, yet he was impartial enough to acknowledge that the big lumber-laden coaster was a fine sight, too, sailing “ by the wind,” under a cloud of canvas !

“ She’s carrying every rag she has : two j ibs — fore-stays’l — mains’l and spanker ; three tops’ls — main an’ mizzen stays’ls, as well ! ” slowly enumerated the boy, under his breath, taking an inventory of the different items in that cloud of canvas, almost as if he were a master mariner, himself.

It was one of the delights of his life to glean all possible knowledge about the sailing capacity of each fishing vessel, yacht and coaster that skirted the Cape Ann shore.

“ The little ‘ fisherman ’ is spreading all her muslin, too:” he ran on in an admiring undertone: mains’l, fores’l, ‘ jumbo ’ an’ jib; her four lowers, or working sails, for strength — as Uncle Ceeph would say ! And her three kites — two gaff-tops’ls an’ stays’l, with little old balloon, or ‘ gasoliner,’ for speed — ‘ for get-up-an’- go,’ ” shooting a laughing glance outward at mention of the “gasoliner” to the balloon-jib of light duck, silvering above the schooner’s bowsprit. “ ‘ Light sails for the real life of the vessel: — all her ambition's in them; that’s Uncle Ceeph, again!" an amused regret brushing the boyish face, like a wing, as he quoted to himself treasured-up sayings of this seafaring relative.

“ The little fisherman can outpoint the three-master,” drawing on his own nautical knowledge, “ lay nearer the wind — get the advantage of every puff that comes — which isn’t much now ! Breeze is just beginning to go back on her ! ” mumbled the skipper’s son, while he eagerly watched his favorite “ swinging ahead lively,” perceptibly gaining on the large three-master, despite the fact that her ally, the “ pretty breeze,” which all day long had prevailed on the water, notwithstanding drowsy heat, ashore, was commencing to wane.

“Too bad it’s not staying by her just a little longer ! ” gurgled Oakley scowling at a dwindling puff of the erstwhile, gay sou’wester, lightly tickling near-by waves. On land it was falling asleep altogether; a sultry stillness prevailed. “She — ” with eyes still glued to his champion in the brief race — “ she’ll have to tack, presently, in order to beat into harbor! All the same, she’ll pass the big-coaster before they fetch by the headland, there,” glancing, outward, toward a jutting spur of gold, “I — I’ll eat my coke if she doesn’t ! ”

A HOMING “ FISHERMAN ”

While uttering this mirthful challenge, the boy withdrew one eye from that passing race, and dropped a glance upon a basket beside him. It contained, along with grey chunks of wreckwood, a few dull, moist lumps of steamer’s coke, cast overboard, amid refuse ashes, by the engineer of some coasting tramp steamer, and borne to his feet by big-brother billows, lapping Candlegrass Beach.

To a lad, about to enter on his third high school year, on whom devolved the responsibility of stretching a grandfather’s pension of sixteen dollars a month into an all-round provision for two, steamer’s coke and “ wreckwood ” represented a welcome saving on fuel.

Indeed, there were times when Oakley, having set his heart upon a long course in the State Institute of Technology, after he should graduate from the high school — while considering ways and means — longed nonsensically that it were only possible to replenish the larder as well as coal-bin, with such gifts of ocean — at all events, while a fellow was fighting for an education.

With the love of vessels born and bred in him, he had conceived the daring ambition of developing, with time, into a naval architect, whose specialty should be the designing of “ glorified ” fishermen, and larger sailing vessels, built on lines of strength or speed. Of such able “ windjammers ” the racing pair, before him, were respectively, fair examples.

But though he admired the heavy-laden coaster with the same approval which he might have bestowed on a handsome draught-horse, his heart was with the ocean thoroughbred, the “ kited ” fisherman. He fairly held his breath, while, minute by minute, she gradually overhauled the three-master.

“ You -—you’re the girl!” he rhapsodized silently, apostrophizing her high-stepping bow and smart cut, generally. “ You’re a real dog at picking up your heels! Oh! Oh! ’twould be a sight to make a dogfish drop his herring if you were licked on the home-stretch,” doing a double-shuffle near the tide’s edge kicking up a rainbowed wheel of sand which, for a moment, hid the passing vessels.

This whirlwind subsided, motionless stillness hovered, for some ten minutes, over Oakley’s particular patch of sunlit beach: then, of a sudden, he burst forth in a culminating explosion of excitement — one could almost see “ the chips of ecstasy ” fly :

“ Hi ! Hi ! Hi! Hi! Bully for the fisherman ; she’s passing the three-master now ! ”

For a minute or two both schooners blended

A HOMING “ FISHERMAN ”

into one against the dazzling September horizon — the “ fisherman ” eclipsed by the greater bulk of her rival — then, calmly, she, the smaller craft, glided ahead!

“Hi! Hi !” applauded Oak again, as if the victor were some member of the home team making the score look “ one better ” on a baseball field. “ I guess, there’s a hullabaloo on your deck now, old girl ! ” he ran on, half aloud. “ The fishermen are about wild with joy at getting home — especially if you’re a halibut fletcher — back from a long trip, away up north, to Labrador waters! Depend on it! they’re piling chock for’ard, calling the down-easters ‘ Hayseeds ! ’ an’ ' P unkin-peddlers ! ’ ” merrily picturing the homing scene.

“ If it was, only, a few years ago — and that was an old-fashioned coaster — they’d be singing out: ‘ Rats on your rudder! Scat! take your rudder indoors ! Rats on it ! ’ ”

And, because he was a fisherman’s son, Oakley could not, for the life of him, refrain from sending this traditionary taunt ringing in a “ fullblast ” shout over gold-crowned billows separating him from the beaten coaster. Albeit, he very well knew it to be a libel on the handsome three-master : that she was fitted with the newest type of transom stern — that few, if any, living coasters, to-day, are disfigured by the antiquated rudder-outside attachment, which fishermen people with imaginary climbing rats!

Meanwhile, the victorious fishing schooner was disappearing round that gilded headland, through jeweled gates of waning sunlight, lightly touched with downy haze. Oak’s eager gaze followed her, until the thin spires of her topmasts — the last kite-wing of topsail — were hidden by that jutting point.

“ I always think that a fisherman looks proud, coming home, like that — from a long trip, most likely — with all her light kites flying ! ” he mused, thinking of topsail and staysail pinions, which, according to “ Uncle Ceeph ” were the “ real life ” of a vessel. “ She’d have passed the three-master sooner but for the breeze dropping down! There’s not a puff ’long shore, now. I guess ’twill come up thick o’ fog, presently, at sundown — ” surveying the downy atmosphere with the keen “ weather eye ” of a Cape boy — “ an oozy, milk-shake land-fog with the sunset ‘ running its little old lights,’ behind the screen — same as we get often in the very beginning of September ! ” speculating silently. “ But the little ‘ fisherman ’ will have rounded Eastern Point by that time — by beating up into the harbor — where a tug can come an’ get her ! ”

And Oak stared at the feathery headland which screened the victor as if it were a rainbowed transparency, through which he could see Gloucester harbor, with its outpost, the lighthouse on Eastern Point, the jutting masonry of Dogbar Breakwater, and the white tower on Ten Pound Island, like a gate-pillar of the inner harbor.

In imagination he followed the homing fishing vessel, as a tug came hustling, like a dark step-brother, to meet and tow her to some snug berth by a marine railway, after perils of gale, black fog and ice, which had beset her — if she was a halibut fletcher — • during a four months’ trip.

Having, with his mind’s eye, seen her safely ensconced, the boy, feeling that excitement had 44 slumped,” fell back upon his occupation before the race attracted him, which consisted of eagerly searching those burly gleaners, the breaking billows, for stray lumps of steamer’s coke, washed to his feet by an unusually high course tide !

44 1 guess more than one 4 tramp ’ has passed outside this afternoon ! ” he muttered, gazing seaward. 44 I’m in luck ! ” counting his dull, black nuggets. 44 That coaster is beginning to 4 make a long leg and a short leg,’ now, trying to beat round the headland, there!

“Hi! Hullo! How’s punkins, down-east?” Oak flung after her, as a parting shot — being familiar with all the chaffing amenities proper on an occasion like this — wickedly insinuating that the three-master’s crew would be more at home peddling pumpkins than handling sail.

Yet in the selfsame breath, he began to do silent justice to the lagging vessel!

“ I suppose — now — that, if I were a Maine boy, born in some lumber port, I’d think her the finer craft of the two, by long odds ! ” he ruminated, laughing at prejudice, like a philosopher. “ Her crew might have got back at the fishermen, if they jollied them in passing, by calling the homeward-bound boys : ‘ Bluebeards ! ’ and * Mopheads,’ ” merriment effervescing again. “ Or — ■ Dark-shelled lobsters! ’ if the fishing vessel was a halibut fletcher, back from a long northern trip ! Great Caesar ! sha’n’t I feel like a winner — " Oak straightened himself, abruptly, with flashing eyes — “ a winner from Winnersville, when I graduate from Tech with — with a knapsack-full of knowledge — able to draw the lines of a * slick ’ flyer, like that fisherman — or a stout freighter, such as the coaster — not to speak of vessels larger and faster than either ? ”

The spectator forgot the brief race entirely. A lump of coke, big as a goose-egg, was washed

A HOMING “ FISHERMAN ”

by a friendly wave to his feet. He heeded it not, until another greedy billow stretched out pale, foam-fingers, to snatch it back. Then, Oak captured the egg of fuel, without losing the look of abstraction which had stolen over his face, as of one listening to music more stirring than the high tide’s purr.

In imagination, he was following the forward march of his own future — wrestling prophetically with difficult passages to be faced, in forcing his way onward to ambition’s climax, which he had determined to reach !

Already, he was laying plans for the coming two years in high school : to work and study, like a Trojan, in order, at their close, to win a scholarship in the State Institute of Technology — with the career of a naval architect, in view.

“ I suppose that, if I do pull off a scholarship, I’ll have to land in Tech for the full architect’s course of five years,” he mused, “ although, three would be sufficient for me — to turn me out capable of designing a wooden vessel of any size or class !

“ Of course, the extra knowledge will be a fine equipment! Caesar! wouldn’t it be g-great to graduate, with honors, as a full-fledged B. S.” winking dazzled eyes, “ able to figure on a big steel ship ? But how, on earth, are we to wiggle along, on Gran’dad’s pension till I’m three-an’- twenty — that’s the rub?

“ What — what bothers a fellow most, though, is that he — Gran’pap — hasn’t been smart, at all lately ! Sometimes I — I feel dead anxious about him, after what the doctor said on his last visit ! ”

Oak still held the moist goose-egg of coke; with a half-frightened gesture, he shot it aloft, as a “ sky-ball,” and catching it deftly, repeated this manoeuvre, after the manner of his tribe, who find relief in tossing anything.

“ But — great guns ! what’s the use of 4 boarding trouble, before it gets ’longside?’ ” he murmured, as if shaking off some grasping nightmare.

44 1 guess 4 Papa John’s ’ lameness comes a little against him — now, that he’s .getting old ! ” using a tender, childish name for the grandfather who, for years, had taken the place of both parents — Oakley’s mother having died at his birth. 44 He — he’ll need all the care an’ comforts he can get, though, for the next few years: I don’t want to dip into him too much for my education ! ” boyishly slangy.

44 1 know that he has a couple of hundred dollars, or so, lodged in my name in the savings bank, hoarded from the time when he had the little old Dorothy, and used to take ‘ summer boarders ’ — big parties — out sailing,” ran on the future architect, silently cogitating. “ He’s saving it as a little slice for me when I’m going through Tech! ” with a tender glow on the keen young face. “ But — but I’d rather work till all was blue, during vacation-time, than take his whole little nest-egg!

“ And there’s only one other relative who might give a fellow a ‘ hand-out ’ : that’s Uncle Ceeph ! ” Oak’s brown eye regained its sparkle, as thought flew off to the grizzled master mariner, who had done much to foster in his childish breast a love of vessels, to his mother’s uncle, Cephas Dart, for years, like his father, a Gloucester “ skipper,” of high-line repute.

“I — I guess gran’-uncle Ceeph must have made quite a little money out of fishing ! ” speculated the boy. “ He generally had luck — big trips — used to be spoken of as a ‘ King pin ’ in the fleet — besides, being an ocean life-saver ! ” taking proud inventory of this relative’s marine honors. “ But folks say he’s put it all into that little farm he bought eight months ago — on a clearing in the back-woods up Essex way ! Fancy!” appealing, with a grin, to the hazing sea. “ Just fancy, Uncle Ceeph growing corn an’ cabbage, instead of ‘ lugging ’ sail in a hard breeze ! If — • if that’s not enough to make a dogfish chuck his herring!” again ringing in the voracious little horned shark, oft the bane of Uncle Ceeph’s life on the fishing grounds.

“ Anyhow — I don’t think I’d want to strike him for help, towards — towards ‘ making a man o’ myself ’ ! ” Again, that shadowy wing of regret brushed the boy’s cheek. “ I guess, Gran’- pap and he had a fuss of some kind, about the time when they went into the fish-curing business together — and their smoke-house burned down ! Uncle Ceeph had ‘ peppered for ’ swordfish so much that a little of the pepper was lodged in him!” laughing silently. “Well, I guess I can manage to run things on my own hook, while I’m pulling off an education, so long’s my living is provided for out of Gran’pap’s pension ! There’s plenty to be done round here, in summer by which a fellow can earn money for trainfare an’ books. Even if it comes to pinching out one suit of clothes a year, by living on fish — • or to roughing it a little — what do I care: I wasn’t brought up in a flowerpot ! ” with a gay disdain for fellows who were.

“ Only, it’s a pity that one can’t vary the diet by chewing steamer’s coke occasionally ! ”

Laughingly, now, young Oakley Rose tossed the black egg of fuel into the air, bringing the

A HOMING “ FISHERMAN ”

moist lump to his lips on catching it again, as if to test whether it could, possibly, be made edible as well as combustible!

The next instant he “ fetched a flurry,” and dropped it, like a live coal, into his basket, at a childish shriek — a pin-whistle squeal of derision behind him.

“E zt-zt-eeh!” shrilled this small voice, accompanied by a strange grating squeak. “ Eeeeeh! You — you’re eatin’ coal! Cra-crazy you are t-tryin’ to eat coal! ”

“ Look out that I don’t make you eat some, little Mr. Smarty ! ” gasped Oakley, laughingly taken aback, as he whirled round to meet the challenging stare of a pair of wide, cup-like eyes, brimming with contempt for his tall folly.

Beneath them, cheeks were rounded — each into a tanned half-globe — mapped out in lights and shades by the flicker of a connecting grin.

“Hullo, Chummy!” breathlessly ejaculated the lad who had “ owned the beach ” for the past hour, “ where did you spring from ? Have you wandered off your reservation ? ” His laughing eye dropped from the puffy face of the newcomer to the straight five-year-old little body. “ Great — Great Caesar’s ghost ! are you a stray pappoose, lost on the marshes — roving among the candlegrass — or what ? ”

“I — I’m a — Injun — a Kick-Kick-a-poo Injun; dat’s what my papa — calls me!” bragged the small stranger, the statement being corroborated by a blast of mechanical squeaks. “ An’ — an’ this is my bear . He — he runned away from me in the ca’dlegrass ; I — I got to follow him ! ” looking up at Oakley, with eyes solemnly asseverating.

“ Great Scott ! he did — did he ? ” exclaimed the latter, hugely tickled, his delighted gaze taking in the extreme picturesqueness of a little figure clad in a child’s “ Indian suit ” of yellow linen jacket and wee, loose trousers, the latter gaudily decorated with rainbow fringes away down to the instep of a tiny moccasined foot.

Breast to breast — its silky hind-paws clasping his ribs — the child held a flaxen, gamy Teddy bear, which, as the owner’s restless little fingers squeezed him repeatedly in a vocal spot, swore to all statements in a braying squeak.

There was a touch of wildness in the setting of the quaint picture which appealed to Oakley’s imagination.

Child and bear-cub were outlined against a background of spreading salt-marsh, whose clumpy candlegrass fringed the beach. In each yellow clump the setting sun had lit a flaring torch, which, in turn, the land-fog of Oak’s

A HOMING “ FISHERMAN ”

predicting tried to quench, by shrouding each candle in a soft extinguisher, as of shredded cotton-wool.

Within the past quarter of an hour this opal, sundown fog which, occasionally, wraps Cape Ann in mystery at the close of an early September day, with effect indescribably beautiful, had thickened up swiftly — stealthily. It was piled now, like an illuminated milk-shake, above plump billows of the high tide, snoring on the beach, at Oakley’s back, since he turned to face the child.

“ So — so your papa calls you a Kickapoo Indian ? ” laughed young Rose, beaming down on mimic brave and flaxen bear-cub. “ I suppose he’s a big chief! And what may your name be, Mr. Kickapoo: is it ‘ Young- Man-Hunt- Well,’ or f Kill-bear — ■ or what ? ”

“ ’Tain’t — ’tain’t eider!” popped out Puffy- Cheeks gravely. “ It — it’s ‘ Rags,’ or ‘ Rag,’ an’ Dickey! Dat’s w’at Gage calls me! He — he ain’t killed,” slowly groping toward the indirect meaning in the tall boy’s words, while pinching the long-suffering bear-cub; “ his — his b’ains squeak ! ”

“ That they do ! ” corroborated Oak. “ But what ‘ gets me,’ is why you’re called ‘ Rag.’ Your fringes are pretty gay — not ragged. I should say you were a dude Kickapoo ! ” chuckling again, while muttering sotto voce: “ The cutest kiddie I ever ran across — must be the child of some summer visitor, staying in a cottage on the Neck!” glancing eastward, in the direction of a promontory hill — hidden, now, under a cap of fog.

Indirectly, “ Rag ” in the meantime was answering his puzzled question : “ I — I’ve got

t’ree oder names, too ! ” he bragged vaingloriously. “ T’ree big names ! ”

“ Let’s have them, by all means ! ”

“ I — I’ve got Rich — Richard — Adams — an’ Gage ! ” ticking them off on stubs of fingers. “ Dat’s all I’ve got! ”

“ ’Nough, too ! ” laughed Oak. “ Mr. Rag, you’re a ‘ picnic ’ ! I suppose this ‘ Gage,’ whoever he is, takes your initials — the three first letters of your big names — to spell your little one, and tacks on the little old s when he feels like it — eh?”

Dickey nodded ; one could almost hear his own forward little brain “ squeak,” in his effort to keep abreast of the big boy’s conversation; * “And where are you staying, Mr. Dandy Kickapoo : where’s your hut — or tepee — at present? I mean, where do you live, just now ? ”

A HOMING “ FISHERMAN ”

The child waved a small arm in yellow jacket sleeve, with bored indifference, toward the salt-marshes eastward :

“Oh! You don’t sleep in a clump of candlegrass, do you ? ” chaffed Oak, while confirmed in his guess that Dickey’s “ folks ” were summer visitors, staying on the hilly Neck. “ How did you roam all this way, by yourself?” he questioned, again puzzled at the appearance of so small a child far from any dwelling.

“ Bear, he — he runned away f’om me — in the long grass ! ” repeated “ Rag,” mendaciously, gazing up at the questioner with eyes of innocence which said that this was no fib but a fiction of fancy — childish make-belief — whereby Dickey glorified his wandering impulses by attributing them to the wilful leadings of his bearpet!

“ Well! you, certainly are a cute little fellow! ” gurgled Oakley, slapping his knee, in high delight. “ So cute you’d creep under one’s trouser-leg an’ out under one’s collar — as Gran’pap used to say of me, long ago! How long have you been playing on the beach, here? Did you see the vessels — the boats — racing, out there, a while ago, before the fog came on so milky thick?”

Dickey, as was a habit with him, fastened eagerly upon one word in the question, letting the remainder drift, unheeded.

“ Do — do you b-build boats ? ” he inquired suavely. “ My — my papa builds b-boats : he builds v-v- vessels in his yard — Gage says so ! ” “ This Gage, whoever he is, must be quite a fellow ! ” gasped Oakley, straightening up simultaneously, like a shining ramrod, his lips emitting a low, curly whistle of amazement, wherein a mixture of feelings found vent!

“ Gee-whitaker ! ” he ejaculated. “Why — why, you must belong to the Essex Gages; your ‘ papa ’ is R. A. Gage, of Damon & Gage, who own the shipbuilding yard, isn’t he ? In all probability, they built the fast fisherman which scooted round the headland out there, a while ago, showing the three-master her heels ! I hope she’s safe in the inner harbor, now,” radiantly ; “ she was a dog !

“I — I guess, you’ve the makings of a ‘ dog ’ in you, too ! ” Oakley beamed down on the mimic brave, hugging his bear-cub — using the canine simile in its flattering significance among fishermen, as a synonym for daring. “ And to think of your father being part-owner of the shipyard where they build some of the slickest fishermen — flyers — of the fleet ! ”

Young Rose, meditating on this welcome fact of Dickey’s parentage, turned back toward the now shrouded sea! The blurred headland beyond which fishing schooner and coaster had vanished, some three-quarters of an hour earlier, was blotted out. He could scarcely see high, staggering rollers, a hundred yards out, because of the blur, piling like an ever-thickening milk-shake along the marsh-bordered shore !

“ Great Scott ! Mr. Kickapoo,” he gasped, with a waking start, “ the bear an’ you had better hustle for home like good ones. ’Twill be thick as milkbroth over the salt-marshes presently,” with an anxious laugh. “ We ‘ grind out ’ fog here, as fishermen say of the Bay of Fundy ! ”

The joke, somehow, fell flat, and his laughter held a sting of alarm, as Oakley glanced hurriedly westward at the milky wall, shot with a rain of feathered, rose-colored arrows, intervening between himself, the mimic Indian at his side, and the sunset like a screen of rice-paper, with a lamp behind it.

Chapter II

T" OU’D better put for home, 4 Rag/ just j as fast as you can ! ” urged Oakley, hurriedly catching up his basket. Taking the mimic Indian’s hand in his, he led him inland, away from the shrouded beach ; then, suddenly, halting, he turned the child’s face eastward, away from the sunset’s fog-screened lamp.

“ Now, then ! ” he gasped, with a secret uneasiness of his own at heart, which made him impatient. “ Now, then, Dickey-bird, you go right straight ahead, across the candlegrass, until you come to the hill where all the houses are; I guess somebody will take you in hands, there — • steer you home — it’s a summer hive 1 I wish to goodness, I could go with you; I don’t trust that roving bear of yours ! ” with a flurried laugh. “ But I ought to have been at home ages ago ! My ‘ Gran’dad ’ isn’t well ; he’s all alone — and waiting for his supper ! ”