sometimes, but all
sailors are."

"Well, it's a rough life," said Brother Bart, recalling his own late
experience. "It's little chance it gives you to think or pray. But the old
man ye talk of prayed; I am sure of that. The beads here bear token of
it."

"Aye," answered Captain Jeb. "He held to them to the last as tight as if
they was an anchor chain,--why I don't know."

"That's yer ignorance, poor man!" said Brother Bart, compassionately. "Ye
should pray morning and evening for light, and perhaps ye'll be given the
grace to know what the hould of blessed beads is to a dying hand. Now, if
ye don't mind, I'll rest a bit in this quiet place, and try to say me own
prayers that I missed last night; for it was a sore trying time to me,
both body and soul. There's no harm can come to the boys, now that they
are safe here."

"I wouldn't swear to four younkers like them anywhere," was the grim
answer. "But ye can rest easy, Padre: I'll keep an eye on them, never
fear." And, closing the old Captain's door on his anxious guest, Captain
Jeb proceeded to "keep an eye" on the boys who were exploring Killykinick
in every direction.

As it had little more than half a mile of visible surface, the exploration
was naturally limited; but there was a "deal more below," as Captain Jeb
assured them,--reefs and shoals stretching out in every direction, and
widening every year with the silt carried down from the shore. There were
one or two wide hollows between the rocks, where that same silt,
top-dressed with richer earth imported from more favored spots by Captain
Jeb, served as kitchen garden, in which beans, cabbages and potatoes made
a promising show. On another sheltered slope, green with coarse grass,
brown Betty was pasturing peacefully; while in a henhouse beyond there was
clucking and cackling, cheerfully suggestive of chickens and eggs.

"We used to hev mostly ship rations," said Captain Jeb. "But the old man
got sort of picky and choosy these last years, and turned agin the
hard-tack and old hoss meat that had been good enough for him before. So I
got a few boat-loads of good earth and took to growing things. And things
do grow here for sure, if you only give them a chance. All they want is
root hold; the sun and the air and the soft mists do the rest."

Then there was the pump house; for even the toughest of old "salts" must
have fresh water. And it had cost many a dollar to strike it in these
rocks; but strike it at las