about the trees and flowers and garden and--"

"I mean about himself," interrupted Mr. Winslow. "Did he ever tell you
about a bank, or why he left home?"

"No, sir," said Bobby. "I remember, though, a story he used to tell us
about two boys whose father had a bank. One borrowed some money from the
bank and lost it gambling, and because he had a wife and little child
the other brother told their father that he did it, though he didn't
know anything about it until after it was done. The brother that took
the money tried to stop him. The father of the boys sent the one who
said he took the money away, and he went and settled in a land like The
Labrador, and never saw his old home or any of his people again."

The two men were leaning eagerly forward during this recital. When Bobby
had finished they sat back and looked into each other's eyes, and after
a moment Mr. Winslow spoke:

"There is no doubt, Edward, that Skipper Ed is your uncle--your father's
brother who disappeared so long ago, when you were a baby."

"Yes," agreed Edward, "and we must go to him and take him home again."

"You--don't--mean--you're Skipper Ed's people?" stammered the astonished
Bobby.

"Yes," said Mr. Winslow, "Edward's father and Skipper Ed were, I believe
from what you have told us, brothers, and in that case Mrs. Winslow is
Skipper Ed's sister. She was a little girl when he went away. We must
look into the matter, and we shall all be very glad if it proves to be
true."

And then they talked for a long while, and drew from Bobby the story of
their life at Abel's Bay--of how Skipper Ed had taught him and Jimmy,
and the evenings spent in talking and studying in the easy chairs before
the big box stove in Skipper Ed's cabin, and about Abel Zachariah and
Mrs. Abel--so much, in fact, about their daily lives and hopes and
disappointments that presently his two hearers felt that they had known
Bobby and his friends all their life.

And Bobby told them the story of his own coming to the Coast, as he had
heard it from Abel and Mrs. Abel many a time, of how he had been found
drifting in a boat with a dead man, of the grave Abel had made on
Itigailit Island for his dead companion, and the cairn he himself had
built.

"We have the boat yet," said Bobby, "for it was a good boat. Father has
always taken great care of it. He and Mother always say it's the boat
God sent me in out of the mists from the far beyond, where storms are
born."

"What a