e hitching-post, but the girl
was too swift for them. With a friendly nod and smile she tossed her
reins to a bashful youngster, and tripped up the path to where the
seaman was standing.

The daughter of the senior Elder of the Little River church had always
been fond of Captain Pott. When but an infant she had looked up into the
clear blue eyes, adoration and love in her own. During childhood she had
sat contentedly on his knee, or on a stool at his feet, listening with
rapt interest to his stories of adventure by land and sea. The Captain
had never been able to spin the wild yarns commonly known to be his
habit when Elizabeth Fox was his only audience. This was not due to any
fear that she would have detected fraud in his impossible tales, but to
the fact that he could not lie when the gaze of her big blue eyes was
fastened on him.

To-day she edged near and waited for recognition. Locks of her fair
hair, shaken loose by her ride, went straying bewitchingly over her face
and forehead. The smile in her eyes crept down to the corners of her
mouth as she sought the averted face above her. But all she could
glimpse were violent motions of one ragged point of his moustache as it
kept imperfect time with the unseen end which was being viciously
chewed.

At length, the irresistible little attraction at his side proved too
strong for the Captain's stubbornness, and he looked down into her big
blue eyes. At sight of his own blackened and swollen lids Elizabeth
uttered a sharp cry. She took the roughened hand in hers and gave it a
gentle squeeze. But her deep concern was quickly followed by a ripple of
laughter. Hers was a laugh that was as good to see as to hear. The
Captain smiled a wholly unintentional smile and returned the pressure
of her hand.

"Dear me, Uncle Josiah!" she exclaimed. "You look so like a terrible old
storm-cloud! And those awful eyes! Where on earth did you get them?"

"Cal'late I feel a heap sight worse than I look, Beth. That set of
females----"

"But your black eyes!" she interrupted. "Who made them like that? Has
some one been fighting you?"

"A feller handed 'em out to me last night, and I didn't happen to be in
a position to refuse 'em," he replied, his grisly weather-browned
features lighting up with a wry smile.

"Who dared strike you like that!"

"Now, don't you worry, Beth. It ain't as bad as it looks. You see, I was
on my way over from the station last night from the late city train.