and. There was nothing alive in sight; some prone black
objects I saw, with a start, were only a few fisher-boats drawn up on
the sand, and none too safe. I looked out to sea; the tide was making,
and, where the strait drew in toward the Cat's Teeth, the waves fought
and clamored with a horrid vigor, like living monsters. Their huge
voices outdid the winds, and, as one after another made forward,
towered, and broke upon the reefs, the Teeth disappeared in a welter of
foam. Hereabout we found the old man at last.

Where he had got a boat, or with what madman's strength he had launched
it, we could not guess. It was midway of the Cat's Mouth that I first
caught sight of him, at no great distance measured by feet and inches,
but as far beyond human aid as if the wide Atlantic had separated us. He
was standing up in the stern, with folded arms, in something the posture
he may have maintained on the poop of his ship in old days--where,
perhaps, he fancied himself at this moment. I trust that reason was
withheld from him in the utter hour; and certainly, although I could not
discern his features, I saw him make no gesture either to invite help or
to indicate that he had any understanding of his position. If mad, I
thought (right or wrong) his death thus less ignoble than his life had
become; if sane, he held a strong and steadfast heart, and bore himself
well on his last voyage. By some strange chance, the boat spun and
tossed among the breakers, yet kept an even keel, and boat and man
together made a viking end. For, so standing, unconscious or unmoved, he
went down, before our eyes, between the white and pointed reefs of the
Cat's Teeth.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

BOB, DEBUTANT

BY HENRY GARDNER HUNTING

ILLUSTRATIONS BY DENMAN FINK

Of course, Bob knew that, as an abstract ethical principle, it is wrong
to fight. His mother had been endeavoring to impress that idea upon him,
from the moment it was first decided that he should go to public school
till his books and his lunch-box were packed and he was on his way
thither; and she had succeeded fairly well, for she had exacted a
promise from him faithfully to avoid personal encounters as wholly
sinful and unbecoming.

As a matter of fact, Bob knew only so much about fighting as he had
learned through round-eyed, somewhat frightened observation of a very
few entirely bloodless encounters among older boys; and, inasmuch as he
had found himself consisten