ail, of which
the most important piece was always the Boston morning paper. Cap'n
Joab had helped himself to this and was already unfolding it.

"What's in the _Globe_ paper, Joab?" asked Cap'n Amazon. "You
millionaires 'round here git more time to read it than ever _I_ do, I
vum!"

"It don't cost you nothin' to have us read it," said Cap'n Joab easily.
"The news is all here arter we git through."

"Uh-huh! I s'pose so. I'd ought to thank ye, I don't dispute, for
keepin' the paper from feelin' lonesome.

"I dunno why Abe takes it, anyway, 'cept to foller the sailin's and
arrivals at the port o' Boston--'nless he finds more time to read than
ever I do. I ain't ever been so busy in my life as I be in this
store--'nless it was when I shipped a menagerie for a feller at a Dutch
Guinea port and his monkeys broke out o' their cages when we was two
days at sea and they tried to run the ship.

"That was some v'y'ge, as the feller said," continued Cap'n Amazon,
getting well under way as he lit his after-breakfast pipe. "Them
monkeys kep' all the crew on the jump and the afterguard scurcely got a
meal in peace, I was----"

"Belay there!" advised Cap'n Joab, with disgust. "Save that yarn for
the dog watch. What was it ye said that craft was named Cap'n Abe
sailed in?"

Cap'n Amazon stopped in his story-telling and was silent for an
instant. Louise, who had stood at the inner doorway listening, turned
to go, when she heard the substitute storekeeper finally say:

"_Curlew_, out o' Boston."

The name caught the girl's instant attention and she felt suddenly
apprehensive.

"Here's news o' her," Cap'n Joab said in a hushed voice. "And it ain't
good news, Cap'n Silt."

"What d'ye mean?" asked the latter.

"Report from Fayal. A Portugee fisherman's picked up and brought in a
boat with 'Curlew' painted on her stern, and he saw spars and wreckage
driftin' near the empty boat. There's been a hurricane out there.
It--it looks bad, Cap'n Silt."

Before the latter could speak again Louise was at his side and had
seized his tattooed arm.

"Uncle Amazon!" she gasped. "Not the _Curlew_? Didn't I tell you
before? That is the schooner daddy-prof's party sailed upon. Can
there be two Curlews?"

"My soul and body!" exclaimed Cap'n Joab.

It was Cap'n Amazon who kept his head.

"Not likely to be two craft of the same name and register--no, my
dear," he said, patting her hand. "But don't take this so much to
h