um he had been keeping for the Fourth of July, but he thrust
it into his pocket with hardly a regret. Then he pulled a writing-pad over
to him, sat down and wrote:

Don't look for me. I am a failure and I am
going away to sea. Don't worry about me. I
am all right and able to take care of myself.
I shall come back some day, and then you will
all be proud of me. Good-by, papa, and mama,
and Bessie.
JOE.

This he left lying on his desk where it could easily be seen. He tucked
the bundle under his arm, and, with a last farewell look at the room,
stole out.

PART II

CHAPTER VIII

'FRISCO KID AND THE NEW BOY

'Frisco Kid was discontented--discontented and disgusted. This would have
seemed impossible to the boys who fished from the dock above and envied
him greatly. True, they wore cleaner and better clothes, and were blessed
with fathers and mothers; but his was the free floating life of the bay,
the domain of moving adventure, and the companionship of men--theirs the
rigid discipline and dreary sameness of home life. They did not dream that
'Frisco Kid ever looked up at them from the cockpit of the _Dazzler_
and in turn envied them just those things which sometimes were the most
distasteful to them and from which they suffered to repletion. Just as the
romance of adventure sang its siren song in their ears and whispered vague
messages of strange lands and lusty deeds, so the delicious mysteries of
home enticed 'Frisco Kid's roving fancies, and his brightest day-dreams
were of the thing's he knew not--brothers, sisters, a father's counsel,
a mother's kiss.

He frowned, got up from where he had been sunning himself on top of
the _Dazzler's_ cabin, and kicked off his heavy rubber boots. Then
he stretched himself on the narrow side-deck and dangled his feet in
the cool salt water.

"Now that 's freedom," thought the boys who watched him. Besides, those
long sea-boots, reaching to the hips and buckled to the leather strap
about the waist, held a strange and wonderful fascination for them. They
did not know that 'Frisco Kid did not possess such things as shoes--that
the boots were an old pair of Pete Le Maire's and were three sizes too
large for him. Nor could they guess how uncomfortable they were to wear
on a hot summer day.

The cause of 'Frisco Kid's discontent was those very boys who sat on
the string-piece and admired him; but his disgust was th