hew Hontvet, and as he looked at Ivan Christensen, the men noticed
a flush pass over Louis's face. He asked were they going out again
that night? Three times before they parted he asked that question; he
saw that all the three men belonging to the island had come away
together; he began to realize his opportunity. They answered him that
if their bait came by the train in which they expected it, they hoped
to get back that night, but if it was late they should be obliged to
stay till morning, baiting their trawls; and they asked him to come
and help them. It is a long and tedious business, the baiting of
trawls; often more than a thousand hooks are to be manipulated, and
lines and hooks coiled, clear of tangles, into tubs, all ready for
throwing overboard when the fishing-grounds are reached. Louis gave
them a half promise that he would help them, but they did not see him
again after leaving the wharf. The three fishermen were hungry, not
having touched at their island, where Maren always provided them with
a supply of food to take with them; they asked each other if either
had brought any money with which to buy bread, and it came out that
every one had left his pocket-book at home. Louis, standing by, heard
all this. He asked John, then, if he had made fishing pay. John
answered that he had cleared about six hundred dollars.

The men parted, the honest three about their business; but Louis, what
became of him with his evil thoughts? At about half-past seven he went
into a liquor shop and had a glass of something; not enough to make
him unsteady,--he was too wise for that. He was not seen again in
Portsmouth by any human creature that night. He must have gone, after
that, directly down to the river, that beautiful, broad river, the
Piscataqua, upon whose southern bank the quaint old city of Portsmouth
dreams its quiet days away; and there he found a boat ready to his
hand, a dory belonging to a man by the name of David Burke, who had
that day furnished it with new thole-pins. When it was picked up
afterward off the mouth of the river, Louis's anxious oars had eaten
half-way through the substance of these pins, which are always made of
the hardest, toughest wood that can be found. A terrible piece of
rowing must that have been, in one night! Twelve miles from the city
to the Shoals,--three to the light-houses, where the river meets the
open sea, nine more to the islands; nine back again to Newcastle next
morning! He took