d fisherman replied.
"An' me a-rackin' my old noddle as ter how I was goin' ter giv' ye
anythin' but fish."

"You're not going to taste of fish to-night," stated Teddy.

"Waal, that won't be no loss," grinned Mark delightedly. "I eat so much
fish that I'm expectin' almost any minnit I'll be sproutin' fins an'
gills."

"This treat is all on us," affirmed Fred, "and all you have to do is to
fill up on what you see before you and tell us what you think of our
cook."

"I'll do that right enough," said Mark, "an' ef it tastes as good as it
smells an' looks, there ain't one of you youngsters that will stow away
more than I kin."

They installed him at the head of the table in the one chair that the
cabin boasted, while they disposed themselves around on boxes and
whatever else would serve as seats. Their surroundings were of the
rudest kind but the fare was ample and their appetites keen and there
was an atmosphere of mirth and high spirits that made full amends for
whatever was lacking in the way of what Teddy called frills. Mark
renewed his youth in the unaccustomed company of so many young lads, and
ate as he had not eaten for many a day or year.

They did not broach the object of their visit until the meal was
finished and the remnants cleared away. Then they adjourned to the beach
in front of the cabin, where Mark filled his pipe and tilted back in his
chair against the front of the shack, while the boys threw themselves
down on the sand around him.

"Well, Mark," began Lester, when, with his pipe drawing well, the old
fisherman beamed on them all in rare good humor, "I suppose you've been
wondering what we mean by coming down and taking you by storm in this
way."

"I'd like ter be taken by storm that way a mighty sight oftener than I
be," returned Mark. "But sence yer speak of it, I am a leetle mite
curious as ter what yer wanted with an old fisherman like me."

"It's about something that happened nine or ten years ago," went on
Lester. "Do you remember the time you picked up a man in an open boat
off this coast somewhere?"

Mark was attentive in an instant.

"I'll never forgit it," he declared emphatically. "I never was so sorry
fur a feller-bein' in all my life as I was fur him."

"This is his son," said Lester, indicating Ross.

CHAPTER XXI

BITS OF EVIDENCE

If Mark had received a shock from a galvanic battery he would not have
been more startled.

"What's that you say?" he demanded, b