early or else they'd all be trying to climb
aboard my bo't like the folks wanted to do to Noah's ark when they see
that the flood wasn't just a shower." He lifted his table upon his head
and marched on, leading his flock.

All the population of the island was out of doors. The women and the
children were idling in groups; the men were listlessly following the
commissioner on his rounds. No spirit of rebelliousness was evident. The
men acted more like inquisitive sheep. They were of that abject variety
of poor whites who accept the rains from heaven and bow to the reign of
authority with the same unquestioning resignation.

But Mayo discovered promptly an especial reason for the calmness
exhibited by these men. Their slow minds had not wakened to full
comprehension.

"What do you men propose to do?" demanded Captain Mayo of a group which
had abandoned the commissioner and had strolled over to inspect the
new-comers.

"There ain't nothing we can do," stated a spokesman.

"But don't you understand that this man is here with full power from the
state to put you off this island?"

"Oh, they have threated us before. But something has allus come up. We
haven't been driv' off."

"But this time it's going to happen! Why don't you wake up? Where are
you going?"

"That's for somebody else to worry about. This ain't any of our picking
and choosing."

"What's the use of trying to beat anything sensible through the shells
of them quahaugs?" snarled Captain Candage, with 'longcoast scorn for
the inefficient.

"Not much use, I'm afraid," acknowledged the young man. "But look at the
children!"

Those pathetic waifs of Hue and Cry were huddled apart, dumb with terror
which their elders made no attempt to calm. They were ragged, pitiful,
wistful urchins; lads with pinched faces, poor little snippets of girls.
Their childish imaginations made of the affair a tragedy which they
could not understand. Under their arms they held frightened cats,
helpless kittens, or rag dolls. The callous calm of the men mystified
them; the weeping of their mothers made their miserable fear more acute.
They stared from face to face, trying to comprehend.

"What can I say to them?" asked Polly Candage, in a whisper. "It's
wicked. They are so frightened."

"Perhaps something can be done with that agent. I'm trying to think up
something to say to him," Mayo told her.

An old man, a very old man, sat on an upturned clamhod and yawled a
discorda