finally gave up in despair, again
turning to Browning.

An hour after luncheon was over, Bruce and Frank set the girls and Miss
Gale ashore, carrying their luggage up to the hotel, where
accommodations were obtained.

"We will leave here to-morrow, if you get enough of the place in that
time," said Frank, having seen them to their rooms.

He went down into the office of the hotel, where several rough-looking
men were listening to the yarn of a red-headed, red-bearded man in
rubber boots. Bruce seemed to be listening to the story, and, when Frank
said something about going out, he grunted:

"Wait a minute."

"Yes, sir," said the red-headed man, squirting a stream of tobacco juice
at the stove, which was well plastered with it already, "I have seen the
critter, and I know, by huck, it ain't no lie. He's right there on the
island, and if he ain't the Old Devil hisself, he's clost relation to
him."

"Now, I pull my traps right down past there every day," said an old
lobster fisherman, "and I swanny I ain't never seen northing of this
here pesky critter. Ef Jeb warn't sech a dinged liar," with a jerk of
his thumb toward the red-headed man, "I'd jest go down there myself and
spend some time a-huntin' this critter with horns an' hoofs an' glarin'
eyes. I'd find out what sort of a critter it was."

"Oh, yes!" returned the one who had been derisively designated as a
liar, "ef you wasn't sech a darn coward, you might do something of the
kind, Sile; but you are the biggest coward this side of Long Islan', so
the critter down on Devil Island won't git bothered by you none to
mention."

This was said with the utmost calmness, the speaker not seeming in the
least excited by being called a liar, nor did the man he had designated
as a coward do anything more than grunt derisively and remark:

"That's all right, Jeb. Don't nobody take no stock in what you say, and,
though this yarn about a critter on Devil Island has been goin' abaout a
year, I don't know a mortal bein' whose word is wu'th a cod line that
ever said he saw the varmint. Whut you're looking for is
notyrietiveness, an' that's why ye're tellin' such stuff."

"I know whut I seen, an' I'll swan to man that I did see the Monster of
Devil Island, as folks round here call him. I'd been down to York Island
in my pinkey, and was tryin' to git back here before night, but the wind
died out jest at dark, an' I made up my mind I might as well hang up in
Bold Island harbor