y had been
placed there by Smatt."

"Yes, we guessed as much," responded Little Billy. "Well, we encircled
the building, discovered that back shed, and decided to try and force
entrance from the rear. I hustled back to where we had left our
automobile, and got a small steel bar from the tool-box. When I
rejoined the bosun, we mounted to the roof of the shed and tackled the
windows.

"Luck was with us. You separate prisoners were in the rear of the
house. We had a narrow squeak of it, though. Wild Bob returned before
we had freed Ruth--that was that engine noise that startled us,
Martin--and Wild Bob lived up to his reputation by that vicious pursuit
he gave us.

"We won aboard safely, yanked up the hook and slipped out with the
tide, without waiting for pilot or clearance. And so--well, now you
know all. Remains nothing but for us to extend you a formal welcome to
the bosom of the happy family."

Martin became suddenly aware that the recital was ended, and that three
unlike, friendly faces were beaming upon him with smiling lips.
Unconsciously, as he had followed the course of the tale with absorbed
interest, he had lost sight of the fact of his own intimate connection
with the narrated events. He had seemed to be a listener to an
interesting fiction. His old habit of identifying himself with the
characters in the tales he read had mastered him. Little Billy's
recountal, and his own responses and interjections, all seemed part of
a melodrama which, played out, would vanish and leave him secure in his
accustomed law-abiding world.

Now he suddenly realized that the melodrama was real, that the first
act only was ended, and that the last was obscured in the future.

The day had been replete with shocks, but the greatest shock was this,
when Martin finally and completely realized that the even course of his
life had been rudely and permanently changed, that he had been plucked
out of his humdrum niche and cast willy-nilly into this violent drama
by sportive circumstance. The tumultuous incidents of the previous
night arrayed themselves in his mind with something of their true
perspective.

He touched his head, and felt the bandage about the forgotten wound.
He became more keenly conscious of his surroundings--the unfamiliar
furnishings of the cabin, the careened table, the motion of the ship
that had at first disturbed and now soothed him, the measured footfalls
of the boatswain, overhead, the sough