in?" she began.
"Somebody you'd expect least of all, I reckon; wall, it's Dave Rollin,"
and she nodded her head quickly and expressively at the others.

"I don't mean," she continued; "that he's been in Wallencamp, but Levi
was down from Wallen this mornin', and he said they stopped last night in
Wallen Harbor--him and some other fellers, mighty stylish lookin', but he
said it was Dave Rollin's yacht, as fine and fancy-rigged as ever he see,
and there was some that looked like common sailors, and they all come
ashore, and the common ones was the quietest. But he reckoned the
fisherman was off on 'a time,' and stopped there jest for fun, and to
show off, maybe.

"Wall, Levi told me that, and to-day, 'long about the middle o' the
forenoon, my man come up to the house--he's down to shore, you know,
along o' Cap'n Sartell and George Olver and Lute Cradlebow and all the
rest, down there a mendin' up the old schooner, 'cause Cap'n wanted Lute
to see to it afore he went away. My man come up for a wrench, and 'Who do
you think's a scootin' around down on the Bay?' says he. 'Wall, it's Dave
Rollin,' says he; 'in the purtiest little craft, that runs jest like a
picter,' and he said they couldn't see but two men aboard of her then; he
guessed they wan't many. It was jest like Dave Rollin to take a run from
Wallen down this way to show what he could do alone, for he was always
braggin' about bein' so stiddy on his sea-legs, and how't he understood
this shore better'n any o' the old uns.

"My man said they didn't know who 'twas out there, at first, for it ain't
the kind o' vessel often seen, and it skimmed along on the edge o' the
water, Sim said, like a bird, in and out amongst the rocks, so't
anybody'd a thought, not knowin' who they was--and them, maybe, not
knowin' the shore--that they was drunk or gone crazy; and Sim said they
hollered to 'em to look out for the rocks, and they heered a kind of a
laugh on the water, and somebody shouted back:

"'Stow your gab, land lubbers!' and they knew from the voice it was Dave
Rollin.

"He was probably meanin' to put in there, and might 'a' come ashore may
be,--he was wild enough--but he seen our men and that kind o' hindered
him; he didn't want to turn round and put right back neither, lookin'
as though he was scared, so he kep' on, and Sim said they watched 'em
clean out o' sight; 'but,' says he, 'I never seen a man turn whiter'n
George Olver did for a minute, and then he onclinched