fully, examining the edges and color as
if he had seen it for the first time and had to pass judgment upon its
defects or merits. Laying it back in its place, he threw himself into
his chair again, exclaiming aloud, as if talking to someone:

"It ain't true. He'd wrote before if he were alive. He was wild and
keerless, but he never was dirt-mean, and he wouldn't a-treated me so
all these years. The Swede's a liar, I tell ye!"

Wheeling the chair around to face the desk, he picked up a pen, dipped
it into the ink, laid it back on the desk, picked it up again, opened a
drawer on his right, took from it a sheet of official paper, and wrote
a letter of five lines. This he enclosed in the envelope, directed to
the name on the slip of paper. Then he opened the door.

"Fogarty."

"Yes, cap'n."

"Take this to the village and drop it in the post yourself. The
weather's clearin', and you won't be wanted for a while," and he strode
out and joined his men.

CHAPTER XIX

THE BREAKING OF THE DAWN

September weather on Barnegat beach! Fine gowns and fine hats on the
wide piazzas of Beach Haven! Too cool for bathing, but not too cool to
sit on the sand and throw pebbles and loll under kindly umbrellas; air
fresh and bracing, with a touch of June in it; skies full of
mares'-tails--slips of a painter's brush dragged flat across the film
of blue; sea gone to rest; not a ripple, no long break of the surf,
only a gentle lift and fall like the breathing of a sleeping child.

Uncle Isaac shook his head when he swept his eye round at all this
loveliness; then he turned on his heel and took a look at the aneroid
fastened to the wall of the sitting-room of the Life-Saving Station.
The arrow showed a steady shrinkage. The barometer had fallen six
points.

"What do ye think, Captain Holt?" asked the old surfman.

"I ain't thinkin', Polhemus; can't tell nothin' 'bout the weather this
month till the moon changes; may go on this way for a week or two, or
it may let loose and come out to the sou'-east I've seen these dog-days
last till October."

Again Uncle Isaac shook his head, and this time kept his peace; now
that his superior officer had spoken he had no further opinion to
express.

Sam Green dropped his feet to the floor, swung himself over to the
barometer, gazed at it for a moment, passed out of the door, swept his
eye around, and resumed his seat--tilted back against the wall. What
his opinion might be was not for pu