s a watchdog. He turned to Wilson
before he started towards this first cargo.

"'Member," he warned,--"jus' one thing to do,--git 'em aboard the ship
yonder. If they git scared and balky, tell 'em they gut ter go now.
Hol' yerself steady and talk sharp."

The boat, a large fishing dory, scraped the sand. It appeared loaded
to the gunwales with the men and their kits. It had scarcely grounded
before there was a scramble among the occupants and a fight to get
ashore.

But once they had secured their traps, they gathered into a surly
group and swore their discontent at the whole expedition. Into the
midst of this Stubbs stamped and under pretence of gruff greeting to
this one and that, together with much elbowing, broke the circle up
into three parts. A dozen questions were shot at him, but he answered
them with an assumption of authority that had a wholesome effect. In
another minute he had picked out three of the most aggressive men and
stationed them at different points on the island to look out for the
other boats.

They came rapidly, and within half an hour the list was complete.

Wilson found that he was in about as tough a company as ever stepped
out of a pirate story. They had evidently all been chosen with a
regard for their physique, for they were all powerfully built men,
ranging in age from twenty to forty. Most of them were only loafers
about the wharves. There was not a seafaring man among them, for
reasons which later were obvious enough to Wilson. It was clear that
few of them were pleased with the first stage of their expedition, but
they were forced to take it out in swearing. They swore at the dark,
at the cold sea air, at the sand, at their luck, and, below their
breath, at Stubbs, who had got them here. Two of them were drunk and
sang maudlin songs in each other's arms. But out of the grumbling
babel of voices one question predominated.

"Wha' th' hell does this mean?"

Stubbs with a paper in his hand checked off the contents of each boat
as it arrived, strode into the heart of every group as it got too
noisy, turned aside all questions with an oath or a laugh, and in ten
minutes had convinced every man that for the present they were under
the whip hand of a master. They quieted down after this and, slouching
into the sand, lighted their pipes and waited. Wilson was stationed to
overlook the empty boats and see that no one but the oarsmen departed
in them.

He took his post with a nonchalanc