and a cupola fitted up like a
pilot-house. There's to be a flagpole on the cupola, and Nan says
they'll have colors every night and morning. That means that you hoist
the flag in the morning and salute it, and when you haul it down at
night, you salute it again. They do that up at the Bremerton
navy-yard."

"That's rather a nice, sentimental idea," Hector McKaye replied. "I
rather like old Brent and his girl for that. We Americans are too
prone to take our flag and what it stands for rather lightly."

"Nan wants me to have colors up here, too," Donald continued. "Then
she can see our flag, and we can see theirs across the bight."

"All right," The Laird answered heartily, for he was always profoundly
interested in anything that interested his boy. "I'll have the woods
boss get out a nice young cedar with, say, a twelve-inch butt, and
we'll make it into a flagpole."

"If we're going to do the job navy-fashion, we ought to fire a sunrise
and sunset gun," Donald suggested with all the enthusiasm of his
sixteen years.

"Well, I think we can afford that, too, Donald."

Thus it came about that the little brass cannon was installed on its
concrete base on the cliff. And when the flagpole had been erected,
old Caleb Brent came up one day, built a little mound of smooth,
sea-washed cobblestones round the base, and whitewashed them.
Evidently he was a prideful little man, and liked to see things done
in a seamanlike manner. And presently it became a habit with The Laird
to watch night and morning, for the little pin-prick of color to
flutter forth from the house on the Sawdust Pile, and if his own
colors did not break forth on the instant and the little cannon boom
from the cliff, he was annoyed and demanded an explanation.

III

Hector McKaye and his close-mouthed general manager, Andrew Daney,
were the only persons who knew the extent of The Laird's fortune. Even
their knowledge was approximate, however, for The Laird disliked to
delude himself, and carried on his books at their cost-price
properties which had appreciated tremendously in value since their
purchase. The knowledge of his wealth brought to McKaye a goodly
measure of happiness--not because he was of Scottish ancestry and had
inherited a love for his baubees, but because he was descended from a
fierce, proud Scottish clan and wealth spelled independence to him and
his.

The Laird would have filled his cup of happiness to overflowing had he
marri