----"

But he lugged at me. I dodged. With a splash that doused us four, Ben
went headlong into the sea. The uplift of the waves caught him. He
threw back his arms with a cry. Then he sank like lead.

The sailor son of the famous captain could not swim. Rebecca's eyes
nigh jumped from her head with fright. Hortense grew white to the lips
and shouted for that lout of a blackamoor sound asleep on the sand.

Before I could get my doublet off to dive, Jack Battle was cleaving air
like a leaping fish, and the waters closed over his heels.

Bethink you, who are not withered into forgetfulness of your own merry
youth, whether our hearts stopped beating then!

But up comes that water-dog of a Jack gripping Ben by the scruff of the
neck; and when by our united strength we had hauled them both on the
pier, little Mistress Hortense was the one to roll Gillam on his
stomach and bid us "Quick! Stand him on his head and pour the water
out!"

From that day Hortense was Jack's slave, Jack was mine, and Ben was a
pampered hero because he never told and took the punishment like a man.
But there was never a word more slurring Hortense's unknown origin and
Jack's strange wrist marks.

[1] Young Stanhope's informant had evidently mixed tradition with fact.
Radisson was fined for going overland to Hudson Bay without the
governor's permission, the fine to build a fort at Three Rivers. Eli
Kirke's kinswoman was a daughter of Sir John Kirke, of the Hudson's Bay
Fur Company.--_Author_.

CHAPTER II

I RESCUE AND AM RESCUED

So the happy childhood days sped on, a swift stream past flowered
banks. Ben went off to sail the north sea in Captain Gillam's ship.
M. Picot, the French doctor, brought a governess from Paris for
Hortense, so that we saw little of our playmate, and Jack Battle
continued to live like a hunted rat at the docks.

My uncle and Rebecca's father, who were beginning to dabble in the fur
trade, had jointly hired a peripatetic dominie to give us youngsters
lessons in Bible history and the three R's. At noon hour I initiated
Rebecca into all the thrilling dangers of Indian warfare, and many a
time have we had wild escapes from imaginary savages by scaling a rope
ladder of my own making up to the high nursery window. By-and-bye,
when school was in and the dominie dozed, I would lower that timid
little whiffet of a Puritan maid out through the window to the
turnstile. Then I would ride her round till o