etapple Cove. She
was speeding away in the direction of St. John's. The weather was
beginning to spoil, and at the foot of the seaward cliffs the great seas,
smooth and oily, boomed with great crashes that portended a coming storm.

Early in the afternoon the wind was coming in black squalls, accompanied
by a rolling mist. As I looked towards the mainland I saw a fishing boat
coming, leaning hard to the strong gale. An hour later Sammy and his man
landed in the tiny cove and the old fellow came rushing towards me.

"You is wanted to come ter onst," he said. "They is a man come yisterday
on that white yacht. He went up th' river fur salmon, jist after his boat
left, and bruk the leg o' he slippin' on the rocks. Yer got to come right
now,"

I took the small package he brought me and rushed up to the house with it
The improvement had continued, and I gave careful directions in regard to
continuing the treatment. After this I descended to the tiny beach where
the boat was waiting.

"She be nasty when yer gets from the lee o' the island," Sammy informed
me. "I mistrust its gettin' worse and some fog rollin' in wid' it. Mebbe
yer doesn't jist feel like reskin' it?"

"How about your wife and children, Sammy?" I asked. "There is no one
depending on me."

He took a long look, quietly gauging the possibilities.

"I'm a-thinkin' we's like to make it all right," he finally told me.

"And what about you and the little boy, Frenchy?" I asked the other man.

"Me go orright," he answered. "Me see heem baby again."

So we jumped aboard. The tiny cove was so sheltered that we had to give a
few strokes of the oars before, suddenly, the little ship heeled to the
blow.

CHAPTER III

_From John Grant's Diary_

In a few minutes the slight protection afforded us by Will's Island was
denied us. I was anxious to ask further details about this injured man we
were hurrying to see, but the two fishermen had no leisure for
conversation. A few necessary words had to be shrieked. Even before I had
finished putting on my oilskins the water was dashing over us, and old
Sammy, at the tiller, was jockeying his boat with an intense
preoccupation that could not be interfered with.

The smack was of a couple of tons' burden, undecked, with big fish-boxes
built astern and amidships. She carried two slender masts with no
bowsprit to speak of, having no headsails, and her two tanned wings
bellied out while the whole of her fabric pitche