posed a piratical expedition to
the French islands of Miquelon which lie off the south coast of
Newfoundland.

"Won't ye go, b'y?" he pleaded.

Archie laughed until his sides ached.

"Come, now!" Bill urged; "there's like t' be a bit of a shindy that
Sir Archibald hisself would be glad t' have a hand in."

"'Tis sheer piracy!" Archie chuckled.

"'Tis nothin' of the sort!" the indignant Skipper William protested.
"'Tis but a poor man takin' his own from thieves an' robbers."

"Have you ever been to Saint Pierre?" Archie asked.

"That I has!" Skipper Bill ejaculated; "an' much t' the grief o' Saint
Pierre."

"They've a jail there, I'm told."

"Sure 'tis like home t' me," said Skipper Bill. "I've been in it; an'
I'm told they've an eye open t' clap me in once more."

Archie laughed again.

"Jus' t' help a poor man take back his own without troublin' the
judges," Bill urged.

The lad hesitated.

"Sure, I've sore need o' your limber French tongue," said Bill. "Sure,
b'y, you'll go along with me, will you not?"

"Why don't you go to law for your own?" Archie asked, with a little
grin.

"Law!" Bill o' Burnt Bay burst out. "'Tis a poor show I'd have in a
court at Saint Pierre. Hut!" he snorted. "Law!--for a Newfoundlander
in Saint Pierre!"

"My father----" Archie began.

"I'll have the help o' no man's money nor brains nor influence in a
business so simple," Bill protested.

The situation was this: Bill o' Burnt Bay had chartered a schooner--his
antique schooner--the schooner that was forever on the point of
sinking with all hands--Bill had chartered the schooner _Heavenly
Home_ to Luke Foremast of Boney Arm to run a cargo from Saint Pierre.
But no sooner had the schooner appeared in French waters than she was
impounded for a debt that Luke Foremast unhappily owed Garnot & Cie,
of Saint Pierre. It was a high-handed proceeding, of course; and it
was perhaps undertaken without scruple because of the unpopularity of
all Newfoundlanders.

Luke Foremast protested in an Anglo-Saxon roar; but roar and bellow
and bark and growl as he would, it made no difference: the _Heavenly
Home_ was seized, condemned and offered for sale, as Bill o' Burnt Bay
had but now learned.

"'Tis a hard thing to do," Archie objected.

"Hut!" Bill exclaimed. "'Tis nothin' but goin' aboard in the dark an'
puttin' quietly out t' sea."

"Anyhow," Archie laughed, "I'll go."

Sir Archibald Armstrong liked to have his son stand upon