ever--though near morning. Nobody would put out from shore before
daybreak. They had been frightened off once. Skipper Bill's wrath
could simmer to the boiling point. But a watch must be kept. No
chances must be taken with the _Spot Cash_, and--

"Ahoy, Billy!" a pleasant voice called from the water.

The crew of the _Spot Cash_ rushed on deck.

"Oh, ho!" another voice laughed. "Skipper's back, too, eh?"

"_With_ a long--perfeckly trustworthy--loaded--gun," Skipper Bill
solemnly replied.

The men in the punts laughed heartily.

"Sheer off!" Skipper Bill roared.

But in the protecting shadows of the night the punts came closer. And
there was another laugh.

* * * * *

It chanced at Hook-and-Line Harbour before night--Skipper Bill had
then for hours been gone towards Jolly Harbour--that a Labrador
fishing craft put in for water. She was loaded deep; her decks were
fairly awash with her load of fish, and at best she was squat and old
and rotten--a basket to put to sea in. Here was no fleet craft; but
she was south-bound, at any rate, and Archie Armstrong determined to
board her. To get to St. John's--to open the door of his father's
office on the first of September as he had promised--to explain and to
reassure and even to present in hard cash the value of a sloop yacht
and a pony and a motor boat--was the boy's feverish determination. He
could not forget his father's grave words: "Your honour is involved."
Perhaps he exaggerated the importance of them. His honour? The boy had
no wish to be excused--had no liking for fatherly indulgence. He was
wholly intent upon justifying his father's faith and satisfying his
own sense of honourable obligation. It must be fish or cash--fish or
cash--and as it seemed it could not be fish it must therefore be
cash.

It must be hard cash--cash down--paid on the first of September over
his father's desk in the little office overlooking the wharves.

"Green Bay bound," the skipper of the Labrador craft replied to
Archie's question.

That signified a landing at Ruddy Cove.

"I'll go along," said Archie.

"Ye'll not," the skipper snapped. "Ye'll not go along until ye mend
your manners."

Archie started in amazement.

"_You'll_ go along, will ye?" the skipper continued. "Is you the owner
o' this here craft? Ye may _ask_ t' go along; but whether ye go or not
is for me--for _me_, ye cub!--t' say."

Archie straightened in his father's