Cape strain--would have dared take an
oar in that lifeboat in face of such dire peril as this?

"Good Lord, Cap'n Latham!" shrieked Zeb. "That's Miss Bostwick!"

Tunis straightened up, squared his shoulders, and looked at Zebedee
proudly. He wanted Zeb to know--he wanted the whole world to know,
if he could spread the news abroad--that the girl pulling number
three oar was the girl he loved, and was going to marry!

* * * * *

An hour later the _Seamew_, her topsails drawing full and her lower
canvas properly handled, drove on like the bird she was through the
channel into the cove, trailing the old lifeboat behind her. The
skipper had taken the wheel himself, but that "tug to sta'bbo'd" did
not disturb his equanimity as it sometimes did Horry's.

Sheila, muffled in oilskins and sea boots, but with her wet hair
flowing over her shoulders, stood beside the skipper. No matter how
satisfied and confident Tunis might appear, the girl was still in an
uncertain state of mind.

"And so," she said to him anxiously, "I do not know what to tell
them. Cap'n Ira seemed so poorly and so unhappy. And he says Aunt
Prue is almost ill.

"But it was Cap'n Ira who told me what to do when we saw the
_Seamew_ in danger; how to get the men together and how to launch
the boat! Oh, it was wonderful! He was not too overcome to be
practical and realize your need, Tunis."

"Trust Cap'n Ira," agreed the young man. "And what other girl could
have done what you did, Sheila? Hear what Cap'n John Dunn says? You
ought to be a sailor's daughter. _I_ can tell him you are going to
be a sailor's wife."

"No, no! Oh, Tunis! It can't--"

"No 'can't' in the dictionary," interrupted the captain of the
_Seamew_. "You and I are going to have one big talk, Sheila, after I
take you up home."

"Up home?" she repeated.

"You are going back to Cap'n Ira's. You know you are. That other
girl has beat it for Boston, you say, and there's not a living
reason why you shouldn't return to the Balls. Besides, they need
you. I could see that with half an eye when I went away the other
morning. The old man hobbling around the barn trying to catch an old
hen was a sight to make the angels weep."

"Poor, poor Cap'n Ira!" she murmured.

"And poor Aunt Prudence--and poor _me_!" exclaimed Tunis. "What do
you think is going to happen to me? If you go away, I shall have to
sell all I own in the world and follow you."

"Tunis!" she c