these ducks a trick or two before
this trip is over."

He was glad he came. To the devil with worry and women and all the
problems of the universe! He watched the flight of the birds for half
an hour, entranced with the memories they evoked. He made up his mind
to stay the whole month out and get even with them for a hundred bitter
disappointments they had given him in the past.

The long gleaming sweep of the Broadwater Bay, stretching from the tip
of the Cape Charles peninsula to the mouth of the Delaware, was
literally alive with ducks.

Bivens had put him in command of the little schooner and he gave orders
at once to lower a tender and tow her to an old anchorage he knew in a
little cove behind Gull Marsh.

And then his trouble began with Bivens.

Stuart rushed to his stateroom and described the prospects of a great
day in the blinds with boyish enthusiasm. It didn't move Bivens, except
to rage.

"Let 'em fly if they want to, I'm not going to budge. Go yourself,
Jim."

Stuart was furious, and began to talk to Bivens as if he were a
schoolboy.

"Go myself!" he cried with rage. "What do you suppose I gave up my work
and came down here a month for?"

"To shoot ducks, of course," the financier answered, politely.

"I came to try to teach you how to live, you fool, and I'm not going
without you. Get into your togs! The guides are here and ready. The
tide waits for no man, not even a millionaire; it's ebbing now."

"Well, let it ebb, I don't want to stop it!" the sick man snarled.

Nan came in, pressed Stuart's hand as she passed, nodded good morning
and joined her voice to Stuart's.

"Come, you must go, Cal. It's a glorious day."

The doctor slipped in a word, too.

"By all means, Mr. Bivens, get your hand in the first day."

Bivens lifted himself to a half-sitting posture, glared at his
physician and yelled with fury:

"Get out--all of you--and let me alone!"

The doctor and Nan left on tip-toe, but Stuart folded his arms and
looked at Bivens.

"I'd just like to choke you," he quietly said at last.

Bivens turned on him with rage.

"How dare you speak to me in that manner?"

Stuart broke into a laugh and sat down on the edge of the bed,
deliberately fixing him with a contemptuous look.

"Well, of all the gall I've ever encountered--did you say _dare_ to me?
What do you take me for, one of your servants? If you weren't sick I'd
slap you."

"You'd better not try it," the little man growle