med surprised; but it was plain that his first
interest in Burr quickly had vanished; when he left the wheelhouse, he
returned to Alan indulgently. "You thought that was Mr. Corvet?" he
asked, amused.

"You don't think so?" Alan asked.

"Ben Corvet like that? Did you ever see Ben Corvet?"

"Only his picture," Alan confessed. "But you looked queer when you
first saw Burr."

"That was a trick of his eyes. Say, they did give me a start. Ben
Corvet had just that sort of trick of looking through a man."

"And his eyes were like that?"

"Sure. But Ben Corvet couldn't be like that!"

Alan prepared to go on duty. He would not let himself be disappointed
by the skipper's failure to identify old Burr; the skipper had known
immediately at sight of the old man that he was the one whom Alan
thought was Corvet, and he had found a definite resemblance. It might
well have been only the impossibility of believing that Corvet could
have become like this which had prevented fuller recognition. Mr.
Sherrill, undoubtedly, would send some one more familiar with Benjamin
Corvet and who might make proper allowances.

Alan went forward to his post as a blast from the steam whistle of the
switching engine, announcing that the cars all were on board, was
answered by a warning blast from the ferry. On the car decks the
trains had been secured in place; and, because of the roughness of the
weather, the wheels had been locked upon the tracks with additional
chains as well as with the blocks and chains usually used. Orders now
sounded from the bridge; the steel deck began to shake with the
reverberations of the engines; the mooring lines were taken in; the
rails upon the fantail of the ferry separated from the rails upon the
wharf, and clear water showed between. Alan took up his slow pace as
lookout from rail to rail across the bow, straining his eyes forward
into the thickness of the snow-filled night.

Because of the severe cold, the watches had been shortened. Alan would
be relieved from time to time to warm himself, and then he would return
to duty again. Old Burr at the wheel would be relieved and would go on
duty at the same hours as Alan himself. Benjamin Corvet! The fancy
reiterated itself to him. Could he be mistaken? Was that man, whose
eyes turned alternately from the compass to the bow of the ferry as it
shifted and rose and fell, the same who had sat in that lonely chair
turned toward the fireplace in the ho