n's here and he'll take care of
you till I get back. Betty Gallup'll be here by six or a little after
to do the work. You can have her stop at night, if you want to."

"But, Uncle----"

"Must hurry, Louise," hastily said Cap'n Abe as he heard the bedcords
creak and the patter of the girl's feet on the matting. "Cap'n Am'zon
knows of a craft that'll sail to-day from Boston and I must jine her
crew. Good-bye!"

He was gone. Louise, throwing on the negligee, hurried to the screened
window. The fog had breathed upon the wires and clouded them. She
heard the door open below, a step on the porch, and then a muffled:

"Bye, Am'zon. Don't take no wooden money. I'm off."

A shrouded figure passed up the road and was quickly hidden by the fog.

CHAPTER VI

BOARDED BY PIRATES

Louise could not go back to sleep. She drew the ruffles of the
negligee about her throat and removed the sliding screen the better to
see into the outer world.

There was a movement in the fog, for the rising breeze ruffled, it.
Full daybreak would bring its entire dissipation. Already the mist
held a luster heralding the sun. The "hush-hush" of the surf along The
Beaches was more insistent now than at any time since Louise had come
to Cap'n Abe's store, while the moan of the breakers on the outer reefs
was like the deep notes of a distant organ.

A cock crew, and at his signal outdoor life seemed to awaken. Other
chanticleers sounded their alarms; a colt whistled in a paddock and his
mother neighed softly from her stall; a cow lowed; then, sweet and
clear as a mountain stream, broke forth the whistle of a wild bird in
the marsh. This matin of the feathered songster rose higher and higher
till he reached the very top note of his scale and then fell again, by
cadences, until it mingled with the less compelling calls of other
birds.

There was a warm pinkness spreading through the fog in one direction,
and Louise knew it must be the reflection of the light upon the eastern
horizon. The sun would soon begin a new day's journey.

The fog was fast thinning, for across the road she could see a spiral
of blue smoke, mounting through it from the chimney of a neighbor. The
kitchen fire there had just been lighted.

Below, and from the living-rooms behind the store, the girl heard some
faint noises as though the early morning tasks of getting in wood and
filling the coal scuttle were under way. Uncle Amazon must be "takin'
holt"