was his bad luck and not yours that
time, wasn't it? That fact ought to drive away your presentiments
instead of increasing them, my boy."

"Perhaps, and yet it doesn't," replied Manson. "It keeps crowding me
into the belief that I am booked for the same fate in the near future,
and, do all I can, I can't put that idea away."

"Nonsense," put in Pullen, "that is all bosh, and in the same list with
the Friday business, and seeing the moon over your left shoulder, and
all that string of superstition that has come down to us, or rather, up
to us from the Dark Ages, when mankind believed in no end of hobgoblin
things."

"Say, Frank, don't you believe in luck?" interposed Manson. "Don't you
believe there is such a thing as good or ill luck in this world, and
that one or the other follows us most of the time all through life?"

"Yes, to a certain extent I do," answered Frank. "But I've noticed that
good luck comes oftenest to those who put forth the greatest effort, and
ill luck is quite apt to chase those who are seemingly born tired."

Manson was silent, for the wholesome optimism of his friend went far to
dispel his grewsome imaginings.

"How does a mystery you can't understand affect you, Frank?" he said at
last.

"Oh, as for that, if I can't find some solution for it easily I put it
away and think of some other matter. Life is too short to waste in
trying to solve all we can't understand. And speaking of mysteries,"
continued Frank, "you ought to have been born and brought up where I
was, on an island off the coast of Maine. There is more mystery to the
square mile down that way, I believe, than anywhere else in the world,
unless it be Egypt. There is a little village called Pemaquid, where
they fence it in and charge an admission. I know of a dozen places where
there are old Indian villages; old fort sites; old burial-places that
fairly bristle with mystery! If you go anywhere near them the natives
will ask you to go and look at this spot, or that, and act as if they
expected you to take off your hat while they tell all about it in an
awed whisper. Oh, we have mystery to burn down in Maine! Maine would
just suit you, Manson! There isn't an island on the coast, a lake or
mountain in the interior that hasn't got a fairy tale, or some legend
connected with it. You remember what I told you about Pocket Island the
other night? Well, that is a fair sample. And speaking of fairy tales,
there is a curious one current d