ed on the cars the first time I came
over here."

"On the cars?"

"Why, yes. I forgot to tell you about that."

Then followed a very vivid and graphic account of the sad fate of the
pig and the locomotive. The wonder was, how Ford should have failed to
give Dab that story before. No such failure would have been possible if
his head and tongue had not been so wonderfully busy about so many other
things, ever since his arrival.

"I'm glad it was I instead of Annie," he said at length.

"Of course. Didn't you tell me she came through all alone?"

"Yes; and she didn't like it much, either. Travelled all night. She ran
away from those cousins of mine. Oh, but won't I pay them off when I get
to Grantley!"

"Where's that? What did they do?"

"The Swallow" was flying along nicely now, with Dab at the tiller, and
Dick Lee tending sail; and Dab could listen with all his ears to Ford's
account of his sister's tribulations, and the merciless "practical
jokes" of the Hart boys.

"Ain't they older and bigger than you?" asked Dabney, as Ford closed his
recital. "What can you do with two of them?"

"They can't box worth a cent, and I can. Anyhow, I mean to teach them
better manners."

"You can box?"

"Had a splendid teacher. Put me up to all sorts of things."

"Will you show me how, when we get back?"

"We can practise all we choose. I've two pair of gloves."

"Hurrah for that! Ease her, Dick. It's blowing pretty fresh. We'll have
a tough time tacking home against such a breeze as this. Maybe it'll
change before night."

"Capt'in Dab," calmly remarked Dick, "we's on'y a mile to run."

"Well, what of it?"

"Is you goin' fo' de inlet?"

"Of course. What else can we do? That's what we started for."

"Looks kind o' dirty, dat's all."

So far as Ford could see, both the sky and the water looked clean
enough; but Dick was entirely right about the weather. In fact, if
Captain Dabney Kinzer had been a more experienced and prudent seaman, he
would have kept "The Swallow" inside the bar that day, at any risk of
Ford Foster's good opinion. As it was, even Dick Lee's keen eyes hardly
comprehended how threatening was the foggy haze that was lying low on
the water, miles and miles away to seaward.

It was magnificently exciting fun, at all events; and "The Swallow"
fully merited all that had been said in her favor. The "mile to run" was
a very short one, and it seemed to Ford Foster that the end of it would
bring them u