t lookin' us over mighty close, sir."

"A strange craft? Where is she?" Cleggett was instantly alert.

"She's a house boat, if you was to ask me," said the brown old man--in
a new brown suit and with his whiskers newly trimmed he gave the
impression of having been overhauled and freshly painted.

"Where is she?" repeated Cleggett, beginning to get into his clothes.

"She must 'a' sneaked up an' anchored mighty early this mornin',"
pursued Cap'n Abernethy, true to his conversational principles.

"Is she in the bay or in the canal?"

"She looks like a mighty toney kind o' vessel," said Cap'n Abernethy.
"If I was to make a guess I'd say she was one of them craft that sails
herself along when she wants to with one of these newfangled gasoline
engines."

"She wasn't towed here then?" Cleggett gave up the attempt to learn
from the Captain just where the house boat was.

"She lies in the canal," said the Cap'n. Having established the point
that he could not be FORCED to tell where she lay, he volunteered the
information as a personal favor from one gentleman to another. "She
lies ahead of us in the canal, a p'int or so off our port bow, I should
say. And if you was to ask me I'd say she wasn't layin' there for any
good purpose."

"What do you think she's up to? What makes you suspicious of her?"

"No, sir, she wasn't towed in," said Cap'n Abernethy, "or I'd 'a' heard
a tug towin' her. Comin' of a seafarin' fambly I'm a light sleeper by
nature."

Cleggett finished dressing and went on deck. Sure enough, towards the
south end of the canal, three or four hundred yards south of the Jasper
B., and about the same distance east of Morris's, was anchored a house
boat. She was painted a slaty gray color. As Cleggett looked at her a
man stepped up on the deck, and, putting a binocular glass to his eye,
began to study the Jasper B. After a few minutes of steady scrutiny
this person turned his attention to Morris's.

Looking towards Morris's himself Cleggett saw a man standing on the
east verandah of that resort intently scanning the house boat through a
glass. Cleggett went into the cabin and got his own glass.

Presently the man on Morris's verandah and the man of the house boat
ceased to scrutinize each other and both turned their glasses upon the
Jasper B. But the moment they perceived that Cleggett was provided
with a glass each turned hastily and entered, the one Morris's place,
and the other the cabin of the