ealed. Old Captain Jasper had won, but he
had never forgotten, and Michael had never forgiven.

Quite unconsciously the feud had been passed on to the children of
both (for Michael had married within a few years), and from
school-days Code and Nat had been the leaders of rival gangs.

When they became young men they matched their season's catches and
raced their father's schooners. They were the two natural leaders of
the Freekirk Head young bloods, but they were never on the same side
of an argument.

Schofield wondered why Nat Burns was not at the fire, as usual
attempting to make himself leader of the battle without doing much of
the work, and now the reason was apparent. He preferred to pursue his
courting under the eyes of the village rather than to obey the
unwritten law of service. And he was with Nellie Tanner!

Unlike most youths, there had never been a time in Code's life when he
had passed the favor of his affections around. Since the time they
were both five Nellie Tanner had supplied in full all the feminine
requirements he had ever desired. And she did at this moment. But Nat
Burns had seen a great deal of her in the last three months, he
remembered, taking advantage of Code's desperate search for fish.

Once in this train his thoughts bore him on and on. Memories,
speculations, and desires crowded his mind, and he forgot that beneath
him the roof of Boughton's store was burning more and more briskly.

Suddenly the man beside him on the ridge-pole shook his arm.

"Say, Code!" he cried. "What's that burnin' over there? I didn't know
the fire had gone across the street."

Schofield looked up quickly and followed the direction of the other's
arm that pointed through the trees to the opposite side of King's Road
and a little to westward.

"Good Lord!" he cried excitedly; "it's my own place, and my mother is
all alone down there. Quick! Send somebody up here! I'm going!"

CHAPTER III

THE TEST

The man behind him climbed to the ridge-pole and Code began the
descent, necessarily slow and careful because the ladders were loaded
with men passing buckets. When he reached the ground he started for
home on the run.

Opposite Boughton's general store was another shop that made a
specialty of fishermen's "oilers," boots, and overalls. Two houses to
the westward of that was the old Schofield place, a low, white house
surrounded by a rickety fence and covered with ivy.

Once he reached the middl