captured."

"Captured! What for?"

"Nothing. Living, I suppose. I crawled into a haystack to sleep one night,
because it was warmer, and along comes a village constable and arrests me
for being a tramp. At first they thought I was a runaway, and telegraphed
my description all over. I told them I did n't have any people, but they
would n't believe me for a long while. And then, when nobody claimed me,
the judge sent me to a boys' 'refuge' in San Francisco."

He stopped and peered intently in the direction of the shore. The darkness
and the silence in which the men had been swallowed up was profound.
Nothing was stirring save the rising wind.

"I thought I 'd die in that 'refuge.' It was just like being in jail. We
were locked up and guarded like prisoners. Even then, if I could have
liked the other boys it might have been all right. But they were mostly
street-boys of the worst kind--lying, and sneaking, and cowardly, without
one spark of manhood or one idea of square dealing and fair play. There
was only one thing I did like, and that was the books. Oh, I did lots of
reading, I tell you! But that could n't make up for the rest. I wanted
the freedom and the sunlight and the salt water. And what had I done to
be kept in prison and herded with such a gang? Instead of doing wrong,
I had tried to do right, to make myself better, and that 's what I got
for it. I was n't old enough, you see, to reason anything out.

"Sometimes I 'd see the sunshine dancing on the water and showing white
on the sails, and the _Reindeer_ cutting through it just as you please,
and I 'd get that sick I would know hardly what I did. And then the boys
would come against me with some of their meannesses, and I 'd start in
to lick the whole kit of them. Then the men in charge would lock me up
and punish me. Well, I could n't stand it any longer; I watched my chance
and ran for it. Seemed as though there was n't any place on the land for
me, so I picked up with French Pete and went back on the bay. That 's about
all there is to it, though I 'm going to try it again when I get a little
older--old enough to get a square deal for myself."

"You 're going to go back on the land with me," Joe said authoritatively,
laying a hand on his shoulder. "That 's what you 're going to do. As for--"

Bang! a revolver-shot rang out from the shore. Bang! bang! More guns were
speaking sharply and hurriedly. A man's voice rose wildly on the air and
died away. Someb