Sheila of Big Wreck Cove. James A. Cooper

approach from the side porch, a warm smile of greeting on her rather gaunt face. He knew that she must have watched the Seamew skim by, making for the channel into the cove; for he had written her when to expect him. But she would say nothing about it unless he forced the gates of her silence by some direct question which demanded more than a "yes" or a "no."

      Lucretia folded him in her arms, however, and patted his broad shoulder with little love pats as he put his arms about her. Her kiss for him was as warm on his lips as a girl's. They understood each other pretty well, these two; for Tunis had caught something of her muteness, living so long alone with her.

      He went to wash and change his shirt. Then he sat down in one of the huge porch chairs and rocked quietly, waiting for supper. He could see into the kitchen, which was the family dining room as well, and when he saw his Aunt Lucretia take the coffee-pot from the stove and put it on the square Dutch tile by her own place, Tunis knew it was the only call to supper there would be.

      He rose and went in, taking his place at the head of the table. His aunt's head was bowed and her lips moved soundlessly. He respected her whispered grace and always felt that he could add nothing to it in thankfulness or reverence if he uttered an orison himself. During the cheerful and plentiful meal the young captain of the Seamew related certain matters he thought would interest the woman regarding his purchase of the schooner and the voyage down to the Cape. He told her he was sure the Seamew was fast enough for a Boston market boat.

      "Speed is what is wanted now to compete with the Old Colony," Tunis declared. "We've got fish and clams and cranberries in season, and some vegetables, that have to be shaken up and jounced together and squashed on those jolting steam trains. I'll lay down a crate of lobsters at the T-wharf without a hair being ruffled. I know how to stow a cargo."

      She nodded both her understanding and her belief that Tunis was right. The legacy he had received from the estate of Peleg Latham, Medford Latham's brother, had enabled Tunis to buy this beautiful schooner. Undoubtedly an eye for the beauty of the craft had more than a little drawn the young man into her purchase. Yet there was a foundation of solid sense under his streak of romance.

      In this day a man must serve a long apprenticeship before he gets a command unless he owns the craft on which he is skipper. To own a schooner of the size of the Seamew is not enough. One must be a good merchant as well as a good skipper.

      The coast trade from port to port along the North Atlantic shore must be fostered and coaxed like a stumbling baby. The tentacles of the hated railroad reach to many of the Cape ports. Yet everybody knows that a cargo properly stowed in a seaworthy craft reaches market in much the better condition than by rail, though perhaps it is some hours longer on the way.

      There were docks, too, at which Tunis Latham could pick up well-paying freights which would have to be carted over bad roads to the nearest railway station. And there were always full or part cargoes to be had at Boston for certain single consignees along the Cape, which would pay a fair profit on the upkeep of the schooner. Medford Latham had lost almost all his fortune before he died so unhappily, leaving only the homestead and small farm to his son. The son, Captain Randall Latham, had lost the ship Ada May and every cent he possessed. Tunis had only his great uncle's legacy to begin on, and he had waited for that until he was thirty.

      In the morning the young man arose early, for the tide was then low, and started forth with basket and clam hoe on his arm. Aunt Lucretia had promised him, by a smiling nod, a mess of fritters for dinner if he would supply the necessary clams. Alongshore the soft clam is the only clam used for fritters; the tough, long-keeping quahog is shipped to the less-enlightened "city trade."

      It was not yet sunrise, but as Tunis walked down through one of those cuts in the edge of the headland, following a well-defined cart track, he saw the rose-glow of the sun's round face staining the mist on the eastern horizon.

      He came down upon the hard sand of the beach and walked toward a tiny cove into which the mud flats extended and on which he knew the clams were plentiful and ripe. Glistening pools of black water, showing where other diggers had raided the flat, were interspersed with trembling patches of black sand. When Tunis began to cross the flat the sand before his boots became alive with tiny, shooting geysers of clean water. He set to work.

      And while he was thus engaged he heard suddenly a shrill outcry and a most mysterious sound up in one of the gullies toward the summit of Wreckers' Head. Here thousands of tons of sand had run out of the cut in the steep bank and formed a dykelike way to the beach itself. More and more sand was slipping down this way all the time. A strong man could scarcely make his way up the incline, the sand was so unstable.

      Tunis stood and stared up the slope. There shot into view, carried rapidly upon the forefront of the avalanche, a white-haired old man who waved a stick in one hand and a cocked pistol in the other, while from his mouth came shrill cries of excitement, if not of alarm.

      But it was what followed Cap'n Ira Ball—whom Tunis immediately recognized—that caused the captain of the Seamew such utter surprise. Sitting on her rump, pawing at the sliding sand with her front hoofs, and whistling her terror and amazement, the Queen of Sheba appeared flying after the harassed old man.

      It was a scene to surprise more than to entertain the beholder. The avalanche promised disaster to the participants in it. Tons upon tons of sand, undulating and sinuous in appearance, traveled faster and yet faster behind the old gray mare and the gray old sea captain. The smoke of the slide hid all that lay behind them, and these wreaths of sand dust threatened a higher wave that might, at any moment, entirely overwhelm both the equine and the human victim of the catastrophe.

      Tunis dropped his clam hoe and started for the dyke of sand on the crest of which the old man and the old mare were sliding like naughty children down a woodshed roof.

      "Hey, Tunis! Tunis!" bawled the captain. "Take her off'n me! She'll be afoul my hawser in another second, I do believe."

      It was evident that he spoke of the Queen of Sheba, but Tunis could not see how the mare was intentionally threatening Cap'n Ira's peace of mind or safety of body. She was, however, "close aboard" Cap'n Ira as he tobogganed down the sandy way.

      "Stern all!" shouted the old man, throwing another startled, backward glance at the Queen of Sheba. "Drat the derned old critter! Don't she know nothin' at all? Tunis! Do you see what's goin' to happen?"

      While the young man had been running toward the ridge of sand, the avalanche bearing Cap'n Ira and the Queen of Sheba on its bosom swept down the slope of the huge windrow, but not altogether along its spine. The mass slid over one pitch of the ridge, and suddenly, following on the heels of Cap'n Ira's final question, the old man was shot to the beach, several tons of loose sand and the snorting mare almost on top of him.

      In fact, he would have been overwhelmed, and perhaps seriously hurt, had not Tunis Latham arrived at the spot at just the time Cap'n Ira did, and suddenly pulled out the old man.

      "What are you doing? Trying to run a race with Queenie?" demanded the captain of the Seamew.

      The mare had come down right side up, more by good luck than by good management. She stood deep in the sand, her naturally surprised expression vastly enhanced. In all her twenty-two years Queenie had never before gone through such an experience.

      "I swan!" ejaculated Cap'n Ira. "Ain't this the beatenest you ever heard of, Tunis?"

      Tunis stared from the old mare to the old mariner, especially at the cocked revolver in the captain's hand. He pointed at the tightly gripped weapon.

      "What's that for, Cap'n Ira?" he asked.

      "I—I—well, I swan!" stammered Cap'n Ira, now looking, himself, at the old seven-chambered revolver as though he had never seen it before. "I cal'late it does look sort o' funny to you, Tunis, to see me come sailing down this way, armed like a pirate."

      "I wouldn't call it exactly funny. But it is surprising," admitted Tunis. "And Queenie looks as surprised as anybody."

      "Yes, she does, for a fact," agreed Cap'n Ira, squinting across the heap of