to fill and light the blackened pipe that dangled limply
from his lips. Yet despite all his coaxings and cajolings, the iron
pump opposite the shed door still refused to do anything but emit from
its throat a few dry, profitless gurgles that seemed forced upward from
the very caverns of the earth. Both Willie and Jan Eldredge looked
tired and disheartened, and when Zenas Henry approached stood at bay,
surrounded by a litter of wrenches, hammers, and scattered fragments of
metal.

"What's the matter with your pump?" called Zenas Henry as he strolled
toward them.

Willie turned on the intruder, a smile half humorous, half
contemptuous, flitting across his face.

"If I could answer that question, Zenas Henry, I wouldn't be standin'
here gapin' at the darn thing," was his laconic response. "It's just
took a spell, that's all there is to it. It was right enough last
night."

"There's no accountin' fur machinery," Zenas Henry remarked.

The observation struck a note of pessimism that rasped Willie's
patience.

"There's got to be some accountin' fur this claptraption," retorted he,
a suggestion of crispness in his tone. "I shan't stir foot from this
spot 'til I find out what's set it to actin' up this way."

Zenas Henry laughed at the declaration of war echoing in the words.

"I've given up flyin' all to flinders over everything that gets out of
gear," he drawled. "If I was to be goin' up higher'n a kite every
time, fur instance, that the seaweed ketches round the propeller of my
motor-boat, I'd be in mid-air most of the time."

Willie raised his head with the alertness of a hunter on the scent.

"Seaweed?" he repeated vaguely.

Zenas Henry nodded.

"Ain't there no scheme fur doin' away with a nuisance like that?"

"I ain't discovered any," came dryly from Zenas Henry. "We've all had
a whack at the thing--Captain Jonas, Captain Phineas, Captain Benjamin,
an' me--an' we're back where we were at the beginnin'. Nothin' we've
tried has worked."

"U--m!" ruminated Willie, stroking his chin.

"I've about come to the conclusion we ain't much good as mechanics,
anyhow," went on Zenas Henry with a short laugh. "In fact, Abbie's of
the mind that we get things out of order faster'n we put 'em in."

Janoah Eldridge rubbed his grimy hands and chuckled, but Willie deigned
no reply.

"This propeller now," he presently began as if there had been no
digression from the topic, "I s'pose the kelp gets tangled aroun