, and they had no
sooner bound him than he revived.

"You are a great man, monsieur," he mumbled. "You have vanquished
me--Deschamps! You will be famous--famous, monsieur. I shall send my
resignation to His Excellency the Governor to-morrow. Deschamps--he is
vanquished!"

"What's he talkin' about?" the skipper panted.

"You have beaten him."

"Let's be off, b'y," the skipper gasped.

They locked the door on the inside, clambered through the window and
scaled the wall. They sped through the deserted streets with all
haste. They came to the landing-place and found the skiff tugging at
her painter with her sails all unfurled. Presently they were under way
for the _Heavenly Home_, and, having come safely aboard, hauled up the
mainsail, set the jib and were about to slip the anchor. Then they
heard the clang, clang, clang of a bell--a warning clang, clang,
clang, which could mean but one thing: discovery.

"Fetch up that Frenchman," the skipper roared.

The watchman was loosed and brought on deck.

"Put un in his dory and cast off," the skipper ordered.

This done the anchor was slipped and the sheets hauled taut. The rest
of the canvas was shaken out and the _Heavenly Home_ gathered way and
fairly flew for the open sea.

* * * * *

If there was pursuit it did not come within sight. The old schooner
came safely to Ruddy Cove, where Bill o' Burnt Bay, Josiah Cove and
Archie Armstrong lived for a time in sickening fear of discovery and
arrest. But nothing was ever heard from Saint Pierre. The _Heavenly
Home_ had been unlawfully seized by the French; perhaps that is why
the Ruddy Cove pirates heard no more of the Miquelon escapade. There
was hardly good ground in the circumstances for complaint to the
Newfoundland government. At any rate, Archie wrote a full and true
statement of the adventure to his father in St. John's; and his father
replied that his letter had been received and "contents noted."

There was no chiding; and Archie breathed easier after he had read the
letter.

CHAPTER XX

_In Which David Grey's Friend, the Son of the Factor at
Fort Red Wing, Yarns of the Professor With the Broken Leg,
a Stretch of Rotten River Ice and the Tug of a White
Rushing Current_

One quiet evening, after sunset, in the early summer, when the folk of
Ruddy Cove were passing time in gossip on the wharf, while they
awaited the coming of the mail-boat,