tty well smashed up, but there
wasn't a mark on 'em except a couple of lumps behind their ears.

"Not us," explained Sam. "Nothin' happened to us except bein' stepped on
a few dozen times. But did y' land the rest o' the _Aurora's_ crew,
Alec?"

"I don't know. I swung for 'em, Sam."

"You got 'em all right, and that'll put it out o' their heads to bother
with the _Aurora_ to-night, though"--he cocked up an ear to the whistle
of a rising breeze--"it begins to feel like they wouldn't 'a' gone out
anyway--it's breezing up so."

"Where's she layin'?"

"Off the end o' the big dock. An' if it keeps on breezin' they won't be
goin' out in the mornin' either. A bad time anyway to put out on a
cruise--Christmas Day. But what d'y' say, Alec, if we take a look around
the place?"

We'd got a pretty good start for Christmas Eve, and around Saint Pierre
we went, Sam and Archie and four men of the _Lucy Foster's_ crew who'd
been in the mix-up. They were ready to tear things up, but there wasn't
much to tear up, because everybody heard us coming, and whenever we'd
get to a place, we'd find the doors locked and the windows barred. The
only place not locked that night was the little cathedral, and by and
by, when we found there was no place else to go, we all went in there.

It was a midnight mass being celebrated, and it was the sound of the
choir voices coming from there that got us, and, Catholics or no, no
matter, we all went in and heard mass, too, and when we came out, not
feeling like trouble any more, we all went down to old Antone's and
turned in.

Christmas morning everybody was feeling better, all but Sam Leary and
me. I was thinking of my vessel, and Sam of his big turkey. He wanted to
get that turkey. He wasn't going to leave Saint Pierre till he got it
back. No, sir, he wasn't. And he had a pretty good notion just where it
was then. Up to Argand's, cooking for Henri's Christmas dinner. Or maybe
him gettin' fifty cents a plate for it for customers' dinners. And he'd
cut up for about forty platefuls. And for forty plates at fifty cents or
two francs a plate. "Mong doo an' sankantoon," yells Sam all at once.
"Come on, Archie--come on, fellows"--and up the street went Sam and
Archie and the four of the _Lucy Foster's_ crew to see about the turkey.

But that wasn't getting me my vessel, and I went down to the water-front
to look for her. There she was, my lovely _Aurora_, to anchor in the
stream, and there was me on th