low in the world, for he added, very
encouragingly: "An' you's doin' tip-top for a green hand, you is."

The wind was blowing right off shore, and did not seem to promise
anything more than a smart breeze. It was easy enough to handle the
little craft in the inlet, and in a marvelously short time she was
dancing out upon the blue waves of the spreading "bay." It was a good
deal more like a land-locked "sound" than any sort of a bay, with that
long, low, narrow sand-island cutting it off from the ocean.

"I don't wonder Ham Morris called her the 'Swallow,'" remarked Ford.
"How she skims! Can you get in under the deck, there, forward? That's
the cabin?"

"Yes, that's the cabin," replied Dab; "but Ham had the door put in with
a slide, water-tight. It's fitted with rubber. We can put our things in
there, but it's too small for anything else."

"What's it made so tight for?"

"Oh, Ham says he's made his yacht a life-boat. Those places at the sides
and under the seats are all air-tight. She might capsize, but she'd
never sink. Don't you see?"

"I see. How it blows!"

"It's a little fresh. How'd you like to be wrecked?"

"Good fun," said Ford. "I got wrecked on the cars the other day."

"On the cars?"

"Why, yes. I forgot to tell you about that."

And then followed a very vivid and graphic description of the sad fate
of the pig and the locomotive. The wonder was how Ford should have
failed to tell it before. No such failure would have been possible if
his head and tongue had not been so wonderfully busy about so many other
things ever since his arrival.

"I'm glad it was I instead of Annie," he said, at length.

"Of course. Didn't you tell me your sister came through all alone?"

"Yes; she ran away from those cousins of mine. Oh, wont I pay them off
when I get to Grantley!"

"Where's that? What did they do?"

The "Swallow" was flying along nicely now, with Dab at the tiller and
Dick Lee tending sail, and Dab could listen with all his ears to Ford
Foster's account of his sister's tribulations.

"Aint they older and bigger than you?" asked Dabney, as Ford closed his
recital. "What can you do with two of 'em?"

"They can't box worth a cent, and I can. Anyhow, I mean to teach them
better manners."

"You can box?"

"Had a splendid teacher."

"Will you show me how, when we get back?"

"We can practice all we choose. I've two pair of gloves."

"Hurrah for that! Ease her, Dick! It's blowing pretty fresh.