what
Archie was waiting for. So far the sea had been like a mill-pond,
except on one or two occasions, when, to the boy's great regret,
nothing came ashore.

"Looks like it. Glass's been goin' down and the wind has settled to the
nor'east. Some nasty dough-balls out there I don't like. See 'em goin'
over that three-master?"

Archie looked, nodded his head, and a certain thrill went through him.
The harder it blew the better it would suit Archie.

"Will the Polly be here to-night?" he added. "Your son's coming, isn't
he?"

"Yes; but you won't see him to-night, nor to-morrow, not till this is
over. You won't catch old Ambrose out in this weather" (Captain Ambrose
Farguson sailed the Polly). "He'll stick his nose in the basin
some'er's and hang on for a spell. I thought he'd try to make the
inlet, and I 'spected Bart here to-night till I saw the glass when I
got up. Ye can't fool Ambrose--he knows. Be two or three days now 'fore
Bart comes," he added, a look of disappointment shadowing his face.

Archie kept on to the house, and the captain, after another sweep
around, turned on his heel and reentered the sitting-room.

"Green!"

"Yes, captain." The surfman was on his feet in an instant, his ears
wide open.

"I wish you and Fogarty would look over those new Costons and see if
they're all right. And, Polhemus, perhaps you'd better overhaul them
cork jackets; some o' them straps seemed kind o' awkward on practice
yesterday--they ought to slip on easier; guess they're considerable
dried out and a little mite stiff."

Green nodded his head in respectful assent and left the room. Polhemus,
at the mention of his name, had dropped his chair legs to the floor; he
had finished his game of dominoes and had been tilted back against the
wall, awaiting the dinner-hour.

"It's goin' to blow a livin' gale o' wind, Polhemus," the captain
continued; "that's what it's goin' to do. Ye kin see it yerself. There
she comes now!"

As he spoke the windows on the sea side of the house rattled as if
shaken by the hand of a man and as quickly stopped.

"Them puffs are jest the tootin' of her horn--" this with a jerk of his
head toward the windows. "I tell ye, it looks ugly!"

Polhemus gained his feet and the two men stepped to the sash and peered
out. To them the sky was always an open book--each cloud a letter, each
mass a paragraph, the whole a warning.

"But I'm kind o' glad, Isaac." Again the captain forgot the surfman in
the