ble seaman."

"Yes, sir--an able seaman," said the skipper also.

And Clancy and the skipper were something in the line of able seamen
themselves.

XIII

WESLEY MARRS BRINGS A MESSAGE

Generally a day in harbor is a day of loafing for the crew of a
seiner; but it was not so altogether with us that day. Within two
hours of the time that Wesley Marrs came in to the Breakwater in such
slashing style the skipper had us into the seine-boat and on the way
to the Lucy Foster. By his orders we took along ten empty mackerel
barrels. "We'll go over to the beach first and fill these barrels up
with sand." We all knew what the sand was for--the Johnnie Duncan was
going to be put in trim to do her best sailing. Coming down the coast
the skipper and Clancy decided that she was down by the stern a
trifle.

So we attended to the sand, and on the way back hauled our second
seine out of the hold of the Lucy Foster, and piled it into the
seine-boat. With the last of the twine into the seine-boat and just as
we were about to push off from the Lucy, Wesley Marrs put a foot on
the rail of his vessel and spoke to Maurice.

"And when I was taking the last of that aboard in the dock in
Gloucester, you wouldn't believe who it was stepped onto the cap-log
and looking down on the deck of the Lucy says, 'And you'll take good
care of that seine for Captain Blake, won't you, Captain Marrs?' Could
you guess now, Maurice?"

"No," said Maurice.

"No, I'll bet you can't. It isn't often she comes down the dock. Miss
Foster no less. 'And what makes you think I won't?' I asks her. 'Oh,
of course I know you will,' she says, 'and deliver it to him in good
order, too.' 'I'll try,' I says, as though it was a desp'rate job I
had on hand--to put a seine in the hold and turn it over to another
vessel when I met her. 'But what makes you worry about this partic'lar
seine, Miss Foster?' I asks."

"Which Miss Foster was it, Wesley--the one your vessel is named
after?" broke in our skipper.

"No--no--but the younger one--Alice. 'But what makes you worry?' I
asks her, and she didn't say anything, but that one that's with her
all the time--the one that goes with the lad that designed the Johnnie
Duncan----"

"Joe's cousin here----"

"That's it--the fat little Buckley girl--a fine girl too. And if I was
a younger man and looking for a wife, there's the kind for me--but
anyway she up and says, 'Alice is worried, Captain Marrs, because she
owns a