with his paper. If I wasn't
guilty of anything, it could be proven easily enough, she said. Poor,
honest mother! She forgot that the whole matter would take weeks, if
not months, and that all that time I would be idle and discontented,
and spending most of my time before boards of inquiry.

"I suppose it _will_ look queer to a lot of people at the Head
because I've gone. They'll say right off: 'Just as we thought! All
this talk that has been going around is true,' and put me down for a
criminal that ought to go to jail. That's what mother said, and the
worst part of leaving her now is that she will have to stay and face
the talk--and the looks that are worse than talk.

"But, Jimmie, I couldn't do it. Grande Mignon is in too bad a hole.
She needs every man who owns a schooner or a sloop or a dory to go out
and catch fish and bring 'em home. The old island's got her back
against the wall, and I felt that when all the trouble and danger were
over for her I would go to St. John's, and let those people try and
prove their case.

"They can't prove anything! But that doesn't say they won't get a
judgment. I'm poor and unknown, and ignorant of law. The company is a
big corporation, with lawyers and plenty of money. If somebody there
is after me I haven't a chance, and they will gouge me for all they
can get. You, Jimmie, and Pete know that this is so, and it was for
all these reasons that I wouldn't stand my ground and let that feller
serve me.

"Ma is dependent on me, and when I have sold fifteen hundred quintals
of fish she will have enough to carry her along until that trouble is
over. So I'm going out after the fifteen hundred quintals. Now,
that's my story. We've heard Jimmie's; but how did you manage
everything so well, Pete?"

Ellinwood was flattered and coughed violently over the last of his
victuals.

"Hey!" yelled some hungry member of the second half. "If you fellers
eat any more you'll sink the ship. Get up out o' there an' give yer
betters a chance!" Ellinwood rolled a forbidding eye toward the
companionway.

"Some clam-splitter on deck don't seem to know that in this here
packet the youth an' beauty is allus considered fust," he rumbled
ominously. No reply being forthcoming, he turned to Code.

"When ol' Bige Tanner come to me shakin' like a leaf an' said they was
a feller on the steamer that would attach yer schooner an' all that ye
had, because of some business about the sinkin' of the ol' _May_, I