t get a letter?" demanded Mrs. Conroth.
But she kept a suspicious eye on the captain.

"From daddy-prof?" exclaimed Louise, jumping up.

"Yes. Mailed at Gibraltar. Nothing has happened to that vessel he is
on. That was all a ridiculous story. But there is something else,
Louise."

"Sit down, ma'am," Cap'n Amazon was saying politely. "Do sit down,
ma'am."

"Not in this house," declared the lady, with finality. "I do not feel
safe here. And it's not safe for you to be here, Louise, with
this--this man. You don't know who he is; nobody knows who he is. I
have just heard all about it from one of the--er--natives. Mr. Abram
Silt never had a brother that anybody in Cardhaven ever saw. There is
no Captain Amazon Silt--and never was!"

"Oh!" gasped Louise.

"Nor does your father say a word in his letter to me about Abram Silt
being with him aboard that vessel, the _Curlew_. Nobody knows what has
become of your uncle--the man who really owns this store. How do we
know but that this--this creature," concluded Aunt Euphemia, with
dramatic gesture, "has made away with Mr. Silt and taken over his
property?"

"It 'ud be jest like the old pirate!" croaked a harsh voice from the
kitchen doorway, and Betty Gallup appeared, apparently ready to back up
Mrs. Conroth physically, as well as otherwise.

CHAPTER XXVI

AT LAST

That hour in the old-fashioned living-room behind Cap'n Abe's store was
destined to be marked indelibly upon Louise Grayling's memory. Aunt
Euphemia and Betty Gallup had both come armed for the fray. They
literally swept Louise off her feet by their vehemence.

The effect of the challenge on Cap'n Amazon was most puzzling. As Mrs.
Conroth refused to sit down--she could talk better standing, becoming
quite oracular, in fact--the captain could not, in politeness, take his
customary chair. And he had discarded his pipe upon going to the door
to let the visitor in.

Therefore, it seemed to Louise, the doughty captain seemed rather lost.
It was not that he displayed either surprise or fear because of Aunt
Euphemia's accusation. Merely he did not know what to do with himself
during her exhortation.

The fact that he was taxed with a crime--a double crime, indeed--did
not seem to bother him at all. But the clatter of the women's tongues
seemed to annoy him.

His silence and his calmness affected Mrs. Conroth and Betty Gallup
much as the store idlers had been affected when they tried