h of something white inside a weir.
The sun was low and dazzled him. He came close and saw that this was
Rackby's daughter. She had slipped into the weir to tantalize a crab
with the sight of her wriggling toes and so had stepped on a sharp shell
and cut her foot to the bone.

Peter cried amazedly. The shadow of the weir net on her face and body
trembled, but she uttered no slightest sound. It was as if some wild
swan had fallen from the azure.

In falling she had hurt her leg and could not walk. Peter tore the
sleeves from her arms and bound the foot, then bent eagerly and lifted
her out of the weir.

Immediately she hid her cheek in his coat, shivered, set her damp lips
with their flavor of sweet salt, full against his.

Deep-water Peter held her tighter yet. How could he know that here, on
Pull-an'-be-Damned, within a biscuit's toss of the weirs, Cad Sills had
served the same fare to Rackby. He turned and ran, holding her close,
and the tide hissed at his heels like a serpent.

The harbor master, lately returned from evening inspection of the
harbor, heard the rattle of oars under his wharf, and in no great while
he saw Peter advancing with Day limp in his arms.

The sailor brushed past him into the kitchen, and laid the girl down, as
he had laid her mother, northeast and southwest. Rackby at his side
muttered:

"How come you here like this? How come you?"

A fearful misgiving caused him to drop to his knees. The girl opened her
eyes; a new brilliance danced there. With a shiver, the harbor master
perceived those signs of a fire got beyond control which had consumed
the mother.

"She has cut her foot, friend Rackby," said Peter. "I took the liberty
to bring her here--so."

Wrath seized the little man. "Thank you for nothing, Peter Loud!" he
cried, and these again were the very words Cad Sills had hurled at him
when he had saved her life at Pull-an'-be-Damned.

"That's as you say," said Deep-water Peter.

"You have done your worst now," said Jethro. "If I find you here again I
will shoot you down like a dog."

Peter laughed very bitterly. "You have got what is yours, Harbor
Master," he said, "and it takes two to make a quarrel."

But as he was going through the door he looked back. The girl unclosed
her eyes, and a light played out of them that followed him into the dark
and streamed across the heavens like the meteorite that had once fallen
on Meteor Island.

Peter had taken a wreath of fire to hi