greater part of it could be removed,
and the balance submerged, with but slight effort, and later all
returned to its working condition as easily; for it would not be well to
draw the attention of outsiders to the contrivance. Wrecking, in those
days, meant more than the salvage of cargoes, perhaps. The skipper
hoped, in time (should the experiment prove successful at the mouth of
the harbor), to rig the dangerous and productive archipelago off Squid
Beach and Nolan's Cove with similar contrivances. There was not another
man in Chance Along capable of conceiving such ideas; but Dennis was
ambitious (in his crude way), imaginative, daring, unscrupulous and
full of resources and energy.

All day the skipper and his men worked strenuously, and at break of dawn
on the morrow they returned to their toils. By noon a gigantic iron
hook, forged by the skipper himself, with a shank as thick as a strong
man's arm and fully four feet long, had been set firmly in the face of
the cliff. The skipper and five or six of his men stood at the edge of
the barren, above the cliff and the harbor, wiping the sweat from their
faces. Snow lay in patches over the bleak and sodden barren, a raw wind
beat in from the east, and a gray and white sea snarled below.

"Boys," said the young skipper, "I's able to see ahead to the day whin
there'll be no want in Chance Along, but the want we pretends to fool
the world wid. Aye, ye may take Dennis Nolan's word for it! We'll eat
an' drink full, lads, an' sleep warm as any marchant i' St. John's."

"What damn foolery has ye all bin at now?" inquired a sneering voice.

All turned and beheld Foxey Jack Quinn standing near at hand, a leer on
his wide mouth and in his pale eyes, and his nunney-bag on his
shoulder. His skinnywoppers (high-legged moccasins of sealskin,
hair-side inward) were glistening with moisture of melted snow, and his
face was red from the rasp of raw wind. He looked as if he had slept in
his clothes--which was, undoubtedly, the case. He glared straight at the
skipper with a dancing flame of devilment in his eyes.

"What ye bin all a-doin' now for to make extry work for yerselves?" he
asked.

There followed a brief silence, and then Black Dennis Nolan spoke
quietly.

"Why bain't ye over to Squid Beach, standin' yer trick at look-out?" he
inquired.

Foxey Jack's answer was a harsh, jeering laugh, and words to the effect
that life was too short to spend five days of it lonely and st