sea-depths where the
cross-lights lay.

"But--but has no word been sent to New York?--to anywhere?" she cried.
"Surely you cannot mean that people do not know of the wreck, and that I
am here? What of the owners of the ship? Oh, God, what a place!"

Mary was startled for a moment, then thoughtful. She had never before
wondered what the great world of "Up-along"--which is everywhere south
and east and west of Newfoundland, London, New York, Pernambuco,
Halifax, Montreal, Africa, China and the lands and seas around and
between--must think of the ships that sail away and never return. Wrecks
had always seemed to her as natural as tides and storms. When the tide
comes in who thinks of reporting it to the great world? Spars and
shattered timbers come in on the tides; and sometimes hulls more or less
unbroken; and sometimes living humans. Mary had seen something of these
things herself and had heard much. She had never known of the spars or
hulls being claimed by any person but the folk who found them and fought
with the sea for them. She had seen shipwrecked sailors tarry awhile,
take their food thankfully, and presently set out for St. John's and the
world beyond, by way of Witless Bay. None of them had ever come back to
Chance Along.

"I bes sorry for ye wid my whole heart," she said. "Yer folks will be
mournin' for ye, I fear--for how would they know ye was safe in Chance
Along? But the saints have presarved your life, dear, an' when
spring-time comes then ye can sail 'round to St. John's an' away to New
York. But sure, we might have writ a letter about ye an' carried it out
to Witless Bay. The skipper can write."

"I have been buried alive!" cried Flora, covering her face with her
hands and weeping unrestrainedly.

Mary tried to comfort her, then left the room to find Mother Nolan. The
old woman was in the kitchen, and Dennis was with her.

"She bes desperate wrought-up because--because her folks up-along will
think she bes dead," explained Mary. "She says she bes buried alive in
Chance Along. Skipper, ye had best write a letter about herself an' the
wrack, an' send it out. She bes a great person up-along."

The skipper sprang to his feet, staring at her with a blank face and
with defiance in his eyes.

"A letter!" he exclaimed, huskily. "No, by hell! Let 'em t'ink what they
wants to! Bain't Chance Along good enough for her?"

CHAPTER XI

THE SKIPPER CARRIES A LETTER

Mary Kavanagh paled, flushed ag