it. Two of the men picked him up and
carried him down a steep and twisting path to his cabin at the back of
the harbor, above the green water and the gray drying-stages, and
beneath the edge of the vast and empty barren. He opened one eye as
they laid him on the bed in the one room of the cabin. He glared up at
the two men and then around at his horrified wife and children.

"Folks," said he, "I'll be sure the death o' Black Dennis Nolan. Aye, so
help me Saint Peter. I'll send 'im to hell, all suddent un' unready, for
the black deed he done this day!"

That was the first time the skipper showed the weight of his fist. His
followers were impressed by the exhibition. The work went steadily on
among the rocks in front of Chance Along for ten days, and then came
twenty-four hours of furious wind and driving snow out of the northwest.
This was followed by a brief lull, a biting nip of frost that registered
thirty degrees below zero, and then fog and wind out of the east. After
the snowy gale, during the day of still, bitter cold, relief parties
went to Squid Beach and Nolan's Cove and brought in the half-frozen
watchers. For a day the look-out stations were deserted, the people
finding it all they could do to keep from freezing in their sheltered
cabins in Chance Along; but with the coming of the east wind and the
fog, the huts of sods were again occupied.

The fog rolled in about an hour before noon; and shortly after midnight
the man from Nolan's Cove groped his way along the edge of the cliff,
down the twisty path to the cluster of cabins, and to Black Dennis
Nolan's door. He pounded and kicked the door until the whole building
trembled.

"What bes ye a-wantin' now?" bawled the skipper, from within.

"I seed a blue flare an' heared a gun a-firing to the sou'east o' the
cove," bawled the visitor, in reply.

The skipper opened the door.

"Come in, lad! Come in!" he cried.

He lit a candle and set to work swiftly pulling on his outer clothes and
sea-boots.

"There bes rum an' a mug, Pat. Help yerself an' then rouse the men," he
said. "Tell Nick Terry an' Bill Brennen to get the gear together. Step
lively! Rouse 'em out!"

Pat Lynch slopped rum into a tin mug, gulped it greedily, and stumbled
from the candle-light out again to the choking fog. He would have liked
to remain inside long enough to swallow another drain and fill and light
his pipe; but with Black Dennis Nolan roaring at him like a walrus, he
had not