such silly talk."

"Oh, I can't hey?" he snarled in a tone that, defenceless as he was,
tempted me to kick him.

But just then the sail of the sloop began to fill. I ran to the tiller
and brought her head around. A little breeze had sprung up and the
Wavecrest was under good way again. In a few moments we passed the
light at the entrance to the harbor, and tacked for our anchorage. My
mother's property did not include shore rights, so we had no private
landing at which to tie the sloop, but moored her at a buoy in the quiet
cove near the ferry dock.

"What do you mean to do with me?" asked Paul, having been mighty quiet
for the last few minutes.

"I'm going to march you up to the house and hand you over to your
father. And if I have any influence with mother at all, both you and he
will pack your dunnage and leave in the morning."

He fell silent again until I had dropped the sail and picked up our
float. When the Wavecrest was fast he asked more meekly:

"Aren't you going to take this cord off my wrist?"

"No. You're going up to the house in just that fix."

"I won't do it!" he cried with a sudden burst of rage.

"Then you'll stay here while I go up and tell them where you are."

He didn't like that idea, either, and whined: "Don't be so mean, Clint.
I don't want to go up to the house this way. What will folks think?"

"'What will folks think?'" I repeated in amazement. "I s'pose that's the
first thing you'd worried about if you'd cut me with that knife."

He said no more, but he gave me a threatening look which, had I been of
a nervous temperament, might have kept me awake nights. When I drew the
tender alongside he stepped in without further urging and sat down in
the stern. I rowed ashore. Fortunately for the tender feelings of my
cousin there wasn't a soul in sight when we landed. I fastened the boat,
and then, with the oars on my shoulder and the slack of the codline in
my hand, start him up the shell road.

"Let me go, Clint," he begged again.

"Not for Joe!"

"Then you'll be sorry the longest day you live," he cried, his ugly face
suddenly convulsed.

And he was right; but I did not believe it at the time.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH I AM ANXIOUS TO LEARN THE PARTICULARS OF A MATTER OF FOURTEEN
YEARS STANDING

My mother's summer home was built upon the highest point of Bolderhead
Neck and commanded a view of both the ocean and the inlet, or harbor,
around which Old Bolderhead was built