worried. By nine o'clock
there was every sign of a no'theaster, and we see we'd have to put in
somewheres and ride it out. So we headed for a place we'll call Baytown,
though that wa'n't the name of it. It's a queer, old-fashioned town, and
it's on an island; maybe you can guess it from that.

Well, we run into the harbor and let go anchor. Jonadab crawled into
the cabin to get some terbacker, and I was for'ard coiling the throat
halyard. All at once I heard oars rattling, and I turned my head; what I
see made me let out a yell like a siren whistle.

There was that everlasting poet in the skiff--you remember we'd
been towing it astern--and he was jest cutting the painter with his
jackknife. Next minute he'd picked up the oars and was heading for the
wharf, doubling up and stretching out like a frog swimming, and with his
curls streaming in the wind like a rooster's tail in a hurricane. He
had a long start 'fore Jonadab and me woke up enough to think of chasing
him.

But we woke up fin'lly, and the way we flew round that catboat was a
caution. I laid into them halyards, and I had the mainsail up to the
peak afore Jonadab got the anchor clear of the bottom. Then I jumped to
the tiller, and the Patience M. took after that skiff like a pup after
a tomcat. We run alongside the wharf just as Booth Hank climbed over the
stringpiece.

"Get after him, Barzilla!" hollers Cap'n Jonadab. "I'll make her fast."

Well, I hadn't took more'n three steps when I see 'twas goin' to be a
long chase. Montague unfurled them thin legs of his and got over the
ground something wonderful. All you could see was a pile of dust and
coat tails flapping.

Up on the wharf we went and round the corner into a straggly kind of
road with old-fashioned houses on both sides of it. Nobody in the
yards, nobody at the windows; quiet as could be, except that off ahead,
somewheres, there was music playing.

That road was a quarter of a mile long, but we galloped through it so
fast that the scenery was nothing but a blur. Booth was gaining all the
time, but I stuck to it like a good one. We took a short cut through a
yard, piled over a fence and come out into another road, and up at the
head of it was a crowd of folks--men and women and children and dogs.

"Stop thief!" I hollers, and 'way astern I heard Jonadab bellering:
"Stop thief!"

Montague dives headfirst for the crowd. He fell over a baby carriage,
and I gained a tack 'fore he got up. He wa'n't