ered openly
were beaten into submission with whatever weapon came most conveniently
to hand. Dennis was big, agile, and absolutely fearless, and when he
dealt a blow with an oar, a skiff's thwart, or a pole from a
drying-stage, a second effort was seldom required against the same
jeerer. Once or twice, of course, he had to hit many times and was
compelled to accept some painful strokes in return. One or two of these
encounters are worthy of treatment in detail, if only to show something
of the natures of Black Dennis Nolan and his companions.

Immediately after his father's untimely death (the poor man was carried
out to sea on a small pan of ice, while engaged in killing seals off the
mouth of the harbor, in the spring of the year), Black Dennis was
addressed by the title of "Skipper." The title and position became his,
without question, along with his unfortunate father's schooner, store,
and list of bad debts. The new skipper's first move towards realizing
his dreams of affluence and power was to build a small hut of stones,
poles, and sods both at the place of the broken cliff a mile to the
north of Chance Along, and at the place of similar physical character
three miles to the southward. It was winter at the time--a fine season
for wrecks, but an uncomfortable season for spending one's nights in an
ill-made hut, and one's days on the brink of a cliff, without
companionship, gazing seaward through a heavy telescope for some vessel
in distress. But the skipper had made his plans and did not care a snap
of his finger for discomforts for himself or his friends. He knew that
out of every ten wrecks that took place on the coast within twenty miles
of Chance Along, not more than one profited the people of his harbor.
They never went afield in search of the gifts of the treacherous sea.
They took what they could clutch of what was thrown at their very doors,
even then letting much escape them, owing to lack of science and
organization. The new skipper meant to alter this condition of
things--and he knew that the waters in the immediate vicinity of Chance
Along were neither the most dangerous on the coast, nor the most
convenient for the salving of wreckage and fast-drowning cargoes. So he
established stations at Squid Beach to the northward, and at Nolan's
Cove to the southward, and ordered Nick Leary and Foxey Jack Quinn to
take up their abode in the new huts; Nick at Squid Beach, and Foxey Jack
at the Cove, had to keep a