Making his way precariously down the slanting deck, he reached in a
minute the spot where the unfortunate lay. The man had washed back and
forth in the sea water so long that he was all but parboiled. The
rescuer seized him by the shoulders and drew him out of this wash.

He was a very bald man with gray hair, a stubble of beard on his
cheeks, and a straggling gray mustache.

"Why, by golly!" yelled the surfman. "This here's Cap'n Abe Silt!"

"Ain't his brother Am'zon there?"

"No, I don't see his brother nowhere."

"Take a good look."

"Trust me to do that," answered the surfman.

But the search was useless. Nobody ever saw Cap'n Amazon again. He
had gone, as he had come--suddenly and in a way to shock the placid
thoughts of Cardhaven people. A stone in the First Church graveyard is
all the visible reminder there remains of Cap'n Amazon Silt, who for
one summer amazed the frequenters of the store on the Shell Road.

The life-savers brought Cap'n Abe, the storekeeper, back from the
wreck, the last survivor of the _Curlew's_ crew. He was in rather bad
shape, for his night's experience on the wreck had been serious indeed.

They put him to bed, and Louise and Betty Gallup took turns in nursing
him, while Cap'n Joab Beecher puttered about the store, trying to wait
on customers and keep things straight.

At first, as he lay in his "cabin," Cap'n Abe did not have much to
say--not even to Louise. But after a couple of days, on an occasion
when she was feeding him broth, he suddenly sputtered and put away the
spoon with a vexed gesture.

"What's the matter, Uncle Abram?" she asked him. "Isn't it good?"

"The soup's all right, Niece Louise. 'Tain't so fillin' as chowder, I
cal'late, but it'll keep a feller on deck for a spell. That ain't it.
I was just a-thinkin'."

"Of what?"

"Hi-mighty! It's all over, ain't it?" he said in desperation. "Can't
never bring forward Cap'n Am'zon again, can I? I _got_ to be Cap'n Abe
hereafter, whether I want to be or not. It's a turrible dis'pointment,
Louise--turrible!

"I ain't sorry I went out there in that boat. No. For I got your
father off, an' he'd been carried overboard if he'd been let stay in
them shrouds.

"But land sakes! I _did_ fancy bein' Cap'n Am'zon 'stead o' myself.
And the worst of it is, Niece Louise, I can't have nothin' new to tell
'bout Cap'n Am'zon's adventures. He's drowned, an' he can't never go
rovin' no more."

"But think o