ared.

"Is you permitted t' tell who 'tis for?"

The young woman debated the propriety of disclosing the name.
Presently she decided that no regulation of the office would be
violated by a frank answer. Obviously she could not send the message
without announcing its destination.

"Are you acquainted with Mrs. Jacob Luke?" said she.

Tommy Lark turned to Sandy Rowl. Sandy Rowl turned to Tommy Lark.
Their eyes met. Both were concerned. It was Tommy Lark that replied.

"We is," said he. "Is the telegram for she?"

"It is."

"From Grace Harbor?"

"I'm not permitted to tell you that."

"Well then, if the telegram is for Mrs. Jacob Luke," said Tommy Lark
gravely, "Sandy Rowl an' me will take a look at the ice in Scalawag
Run an' see what we makes of it. I 'low we'll jus' _have_ to. Eh,
Sandy?"

Sandy Rowl's face was twisted with doubt. For a moment he deliberated.
In the end he spoke positively.

"We'll take a look at it," said he.

They went then to the crest of Black Cliff to survey the ice in the
run. Not a word was spoken on the way. A momentous situation, by the
dramatic quality of which both young men were moved, had been
precipitated by the untimely receipt of the telegram for Elizabeth
Luke's mother.

* * * * *

Point-o'-Bay, in the lee of which the cottages of Point-o'-Bay Cove
were gathered, as in the crook of a finger, thrust itself into the
open sea. Scalawag Island, of which Scalawag Harbor was a sheltered
cove, lay against the open sea. Between Point-o'-Bay and Scalawag
Island was the run called Scalawag, of the width of two miles, leading
from the wide open into Whale Bay, where it was broken and lost in the
mist of the islands. There had been wind at sea--a far-off gale,
perhaps, then exhausted, or plunging away into the southern seas,
leaving a turmoil of water behind it.

Directly into the run, rolling from the open, the sea was swelling in
gigantic billows. There would have been no crossing at all had there
not been ice in the run; but there was ice in the run--plenty of ice,
fragments of the fields in the Labrador drift, blown in by a breeze of
the day before, and wallowing there, the wind having fallen away to a
wet, gray breeze which served but to hold the ice in the bay.

It seemed, from the crest of Black Cliff, where Tommy Lark and Sandy
Rowl stood gazing, each debating with his own courage, that the ice
was heavy enough for the passage--thick ice,