kon I can afford to have _you_ loose, too, now that you can't tell
me my business in front of a lot of skylarkers throwing kisses right and
left!"

"Father! Oh, oh!" She put her hands to her face.

Captain Candage seemed to be having some trouble in keeping up his
role of a bucko shipmaster; he shifted his eyes from Mayo's scowl and
surveyed his daughter with uncertainty while he scratched his ear.

"When a man ain't boss on his own schooner he might as well stop going
to sea," he muttered. "Some folks knows it's the truth, being in a
position to know, and others has to be showed!" He went stamping up the
companionway into the night.

Captain Mayo waited, for some minutes. The girl did not lift her head.

"About that--What he said about--You understand! I know better!" he
faltered.

"Thank you, sir," she said, gratefully, still hiding her face from him.

"Men sometimes do very foolish things."

"I didn't know my father could be like this."

"I was thinking about the men who came and annoyed him. I can understand
how he felt, because I am 'a 'native' myself."

"I thought you were from outside."

"My name is Boyd Mayo. I'm from Mayoport."

She looked up at him with frank interest.

"My folks built this schooner," he stated, with modest pride.

"I'm Polly Candage--I'm named for it."

"It's too bad!" he blurted. "I don't mean to say but what the name is
all right," he explained, awkwardly, "but I don't think that either
of us is particularly proud of this old hooker right at the present
moment." He went across the cabin and sat down on a transom and, tested
the bump on the back of his head with cautious palm.

She did not reply, and he set his elbows on his knees and proceeded to
nurse his private grouch in silence, quite excluding his companion
from his thoughts. Now that he had been snatched so summarily from his
hateful position on board the _Olenia_, his desire to leave her was not
so keen. After Mayo's declaration to the owner, Marston might readily
conclude that his skipper had deserted. His reputation and his license
as a shipmaster were in jeopardy, and he had already had a bitter taste
of Marston's intolerance of shortcomings. If Marston cared to bother
about breaking such a humble citizen, malice had a handy weapon. But
most of all was Mayo concerned with the view Alma Marston would take of
the situation. She would either believe that he had fallen overboard
in the skirmish with the attacking Po