changed or
no, I'll take my affidavy that you are the same old half-witted Hi
that you used to be. I remember dad used to say that you hadn't no
more than enough wits to keep you out of the rain. And, talking of
dad, Hi, I hearn tell he's been dead now these nine years gone. D'ye
know what I've come home for?"

Hiram shook his head.

"I've come for that five hundred pounds that dad left me when he died,
for I hearn tell of that, too."

Hiram sat quite still for a second or two and then he said, "I put
that money out to venture and lost it all."

Levi's face fell and he took his pipe out of his mouth, regarding
Hiram sharply and keenly. "What d'ye mean?" said he presently.

"I thought you was dead--and I put--seven hundred pounds--into _Nancy
Lee_--and Blueskin burned her--off Currituck."

"Burned her off Currituck!" repeated Levi. Then suddenly a light
seemed to break upon his comprehension. "Burned by Blueskin!" he
repeated, and thereupon flung himself back in his chair and burst into
a short, boisterous fit of laughter. "Well, by the Holy Eternal, Hi,
if that isn't a piece of your tarnal luck. Burned by Blueskin, was
it?" He paused for a moment, as though turning it over in his mind.
Then he laughed again. "All the same," said he presently, "d'ye see, I
can't suffer for Blueskin's doings. The money was willed to me, fair
and true, and you have got to pay it, Hiram White, burn or sink,
Blueskin or no Blueskin." Again he puffed for a moment or two in
reflective silence. "All the same, Hi," said he, once more resuming
the thread of talk, "I don't reckon to be too hard on you. You be only
half-witted, anyway, and I sha'n't be too hard on you. I give you a
month to raise that money, and while you're doing it I'll jest hang
around here. I've been in trouble, Hi, d'ye see. I'm under a cloud and
so I want to keep here, as quiet as may be. I'll tell ye how it came
about: I had a set-to with a land pirate in Philadelphia, and somebody
got hurt. That's the reason I'm here now, and don't you say anything
about it. Do you understand?"

Hiram opened his lips as though it was his intent to answer, then
seemed to think better of it and contented himself by nodding his
head.

That Thursday night was the first for a six-month that Hiram White did
not scrape his feet clean at Billy Martin's doorstep.

VI

Within a week Levi West had pretty well established himself among his
old friends and acquaintances, though upon a di