out something
which he examined carefully in the semidarkness of the chamber. He
finally tucked this into an inner pocket of the double-breasted
pilot coat he wore. It sagged the coat a good deal on that side.

He crept out of the chamber, crossed the sitting room, and went into
the ell-kitchen with his shoes in his hand. When he opened the back
door he faced the west, but even the sky at that point of the
compass showed the glow of the false dawn. Down in the cove the
night mist wrapped the shipping about in an almost opaque veil. Only
the lofty tops of craft like the _Seamew_ were visible, black
streaks against the mother-of-pearl sky line.

The captain closed the kitchen door softly behind him. He sat down
on a bench and painfully pulled on his shoes and laced them. When he
tried to straighten up it was by a method which he termed, "easy,
by jerks." He sat and recovered his breath after the effort.

Then, taking his cane, he hobbled off to the barn. The big doors
were open, for it had been a warm night. The pungent odor from
Queenie's stall made his nostrils wrinkle. He stumbled in, and the
pale face of the old mare appeared at the opening above her manger.
She snorted her surprise.

"You'll snort more'n that afore I'm done with you," Cap'n Ira said,
trying to seem embittered.

But when he unknotted the halter and backed her out of the stable,
quite involuntarily he ran a tender hand down her sleek neck. He
sighed as he led her out of the rear door.

The old mare hung back, stretching first one hind leg and then the
other as old horses do when first they come from the stall in the
morning.

"Come on, you old nuisance!" exploded Cap'n Ira under his breath,
giving an impatient tug at the rope.

He did not look around at her, but set his face sternly toward the
distant lot which had once been known as the east meadow. It was no
longer in grass. Wild carrots sprang from its acidulous soil. The
herbage would scarcely have nourished sheep. There were patches of
that gray moss which blossoms with a tiny red flower, and there was
mullein and sour grass. Altogether the run-down condition of the
soil could not be mistaken by even the casual eye.

The hobbling old man and the hobbling old mare, making their way
across the bare lot, made as drab a picture in the early morning as
a Millet. At a distance their moving shapes would have seemed like
shadows only. There was no other sign of life upon Wreckers' Head.

A l