ve you, wicked lad!"

"I'll overcome, sir."

"Ah, Terry, poor lad," cried Skipper Tom, anguished, "you've no place
no more in a decent world."

"I'll overcome."

"'Tis past the time."

Terry Lute caught his father about the neck.

"I'll overcome, father," he sobbed. "I'll overcome."

And Tom Lute took the lad in his arms, as though he were just a little
fellow.

* * * * *

And, well, in great faith and affection they made an end of it all
that night--a chuckling end, accomplished in the kitchen stove, of
everything that Terry Lute had done, saving only "The Fang," which
must be kept ever-present, said Skipper Tom, to warn the soul of Terry
Lute from the reefs of evil practices. And after that, and through the
years since then, Terry Lute labored to fashion a man of himself after
the standards of his world. Trouble? Ay, trouble--trouble enough at
first, day by day, in fear, to confront the fabulous perils of his
imagination. Trouble enough thereafter encountering the sea's real
assault, to subdue the reasonable terrors of those parts. Trouble
enough, too, by and by, to devise perils beyond the common, to find a
madcap way, to disclose a chance worth daring for the sheer exercise
of courage. But from all these perils, of the real and the fanciful,
of the commonplace path and the way of reckless ingenuity, Terry Lute
emerged at last with the reputation of having airily outdared every
devil of the waters of Out-of-the-Way.

When James Cobden came wandering by, Terry Lute was a great, grave
boy, upstanding, sure-eyed, unafraid, lean with the labor he had done
upon his own soul.

* * * * *

When the _Stand By_, in from Twillingate Harbor, dropped anchor at
Out-of-the-Way Tickle, James Cobden had for three days lived
intimately with "The Fang." He was hardly to be moved from its
company. He had sought cause of offense; he had found no reasonable
grounds. Wonder had grown within him. Perhaps from this young work he
had visioned the highest fruition of the years. The first warm flush
of approbation, at any rate, had changed to the beginnings of
reverence. That Terry Lute was a master--a master of magnitude,
already, and of a promise so large that in generations the world had
not known the like of it--James Cobden was gravely persuaded. And this
meant much to James Cobden, clear, aspiring soul, a man in pure love
with his art. And there was more: grown