into the swift current of youth.
He realized that it was the privilege of youth to meet life as it came
and force it to obey the impulses of the heart. He felt as though the
city behind him had laid upon him the oppressive weight of its hand
and that now he had shaken it free.

The color came back once more into the world.

CHAPTER XI

_What was Caught_

The man at the oars rowed steadily and in silence with an easy swing
of his broad shoulders. He wormed his way in and out of the shipping
filling the harbor with the same instinct with which a pedestrian
works through a crowd. He slid before ferry boats, gilded under the
sterns of schooners, and missed busy launches by a yard, never pausing
in his stroke, never looking over his shoulder, never speaking. They
proceeded in this way some three miles until they were out of the
harbor proper and opposite a small, sandy island. Here the oarsman
paused and waited for further orders. Stubbs glanced at his big silver
watch and thought a moment. It was still a good three hours before
dark. Beyond the island a fair-sized yacht lay at anchor. Stubbs took
from his bag a pair of field glasses and leveled them upon this ship.
Wilson followed his gaze and detected a fluttering of tiny flags
moving zigzag upon the deck. After watching these a moment Stubbs,
with feigned indifference, turned his glasses to the right and then
swung them in a semicircle about the harbor, and finally towards the
wharf they had left. He then carefully replaced the glasses in their
case, tucked them away in the black bag, and, after relighting his
pipe, said,

"What's the use er fishin'?" He added gloomily, "Never catch
nothin'."

He glanced at the water, then at the sky, then at the sandy beach
which lay just to port.

"Let's go ashore and think it over," he suggested.

The oarsman swung into action again as silently and evenly as though
Stubbs had pressed an electric button.

In a few minutes the bow scraped upon the sand, and in another Stubbs
had leaped out with his bag. Wilson clambered after. Then to his
amazement, the latter saw the oarsman calmly shove off and turn the
boat's prow back to the wharf. He shot a glance at Stubbs and saw that
the latter had seen the move, and had said nothing. For the first time
he began to wonder in earnest just what sort of a mission they were
on.

Stubbs stamped his cramped legs, gave a hitch to his belt, and filled
his clay pipe, taking a long