esponded Cap'n Abe, childishly delighted.

"That awful scar along your jaw--and you so brown," said the girl.
"How did you get that scar, Uncle Abram?"

"Fallin' down the cellar steps when I was a kid," said the storekeeper.
"But these fellers think I must ha' got it through a cutlass stroke, or
somethin'. Oh, I guess I've showed 'em what a real Silt should look
like. Yes, sir! I cal'late I look the part of a feller that's roved
the sea for sixty year or so, Niece Louise."

"You do, indeed. That red bandana--and the earrings--and the
mustache--and stain. Why, uncle! even to that tattooing----"

He looked down at his bared arm and nodded proudly.

"Ye-as. That time I went away ten year ago and left Joab to run the
store (and a proper mess he made of things!) I found a feller down in
the South End of Boston and he fixed me up with this tattoo work for
twenty-five dollars. Course, I didn't dare show it none here--kep' my
sleeves down an' my throat-latch buttoned all winds and weathers. But
now------"

He laughed again, full-throated and joyous like a boy. Then, suddenly,
he grew grave.

"Niece Louise, I wonder if you can have any idea what this here
dead-and-alive life all these years has meant to me? Lashed hard and
fast to this here store, and to a stay-ashore life, when my heart an'
soul was longin' to set a course for 'way across't the world?
Sargasso--that's it. This was my Sargasso Sea--and I was smothered in
it!"

"I think I understand, Cap'n Abe," the girl said softly, laying her
hand in his big palm.

"An' now, Louise, that I've got a taste of romance, I don't want to
come back to humdrum things--no, sir! I want to keep right on bein'
Cap'n Am'zon, and havin' even them old hardshells like Cap'n Joab and
Washy Gallup look on me as a feller-salt."

"But how------?"

"They never really respected Cap'n Abe," her uncle hurried on to say.
"I find my neighbors _did_ love him, an' I thank God for that! But
they knew he warn't no seaman, and a man without salt water in his
blood don't make good with Cardhaven folks.

"But Cap'n Am'zon--he's another critter entirely. They mebbe think
he's an old pirate or the like," and he chuckled again, "but they
sartin sure respect him. Even Bet Gallup fears Cap'n Am'zon; but, to
tell ye the truth, Niece Louise, she used to earwig Cap'n Abe!"

"But when the _Curlew_ arrives home?" queried the girl suddenly.

"Hi-mighty, ye-as! I see _that_," he groaned