d to the landing and gently placed
her within the blankets.

She sat down and stared eagerly.

Van Dusen unpinned the note, opened it, and read aloud.

WHEN THE COCK CROWS

CHAPTER I

ICHABOD'S ISLAND

The tide was at ebb. The noisily rushing spume-spotted waters of the sea
were pounding the hard-sand shore of the easterly side of a beautiful
island, nestling as a jewel in its setting just within the Capes, which
form the shores on either side of Beaufort Inlet, but so exposed that
when the winds blow from the sea the full force of the breakers is felt
at this point. As this small bit of land is low-lying, more than once
when a southeaster has raged, the tiny isle has become entirely
submerged.

Man has placed but one habitation upon this toy of the great waters, and
that a fisherman's shack, surrounded with the usual net-drying racks and
other crude tools of the fisherfolk. One would rightly guess that the
occupant of an abode built upon such a tiny bit of old mother earth must
be a hardy customer, who understood the ways of the winds and sea and
who dared combat them.

It is sunrise. The door of the hut swings on its heavy hinges. A
sturdy-looking old fellow with grizzled beard and flowing locks steps
out of the shack, and, as has been his wont for years, he scans the
horizon for a sail or perchance for other more modern craft of the sea.

In his arms, he is tenderly carrying a large Dominick rooster, which,
judging from his length of spurs, and scaly legs, has lingered many
summers. Satisfying himself that there is no boat in sight, to break the
monotony of the view, Captain Ichabod places his only living
companion--as he expresses it, his poultry alarm clock--upon the ground,
and from a pocket produces a handful of corn, which the old cock
greedily devours.

These two have been companions for a long time. Captain Ichabod found
him one morning perched upon the top of a floating crate, washed from
the deck of a schooner that had gone upon the beach in a booming
southeaster. The Captain had proved a life-saver indeed to the proud old
bird. Ichabod, when he first spied Shrimp, as he afterward named this
bit of flotsam, was wildly anxious to save the creature so it might have
a life on shore suited to its nature and desires. Then it flashed upon
him that his antiquated and well-worn alarm clock had ceased to work. It
occurred to him that the rooster's crowing would suffice to advise him
of the