d,
running up the steps, gained the deck. Then his breath came more freely,
for the mate, who was standing a little way up the fore rigging, after
tempting the bear with his foot, had succeeded in dropping a noose over
its head. The brute made a furious attempt to extricate itself, but the
men hurried down with other lines, and in a short space of time the bear
presented much the same appearance as the lion in Aesop's Fables, and
was dragged and pushed, a heated and indignant mass of fur, back to its
cage.

Having locked up one prisoner the skipper went below and released the
other, who passed quickly from a somewhat hysterical condition to one
of such haughty disdain that the captain was thoroughly cowed, and stood
humbly aside to let her pass.

The fat seaman was standing in front of the cage as she reached it, and
regarding the bear with much satisfaction until Kate sidled up to him,
and begged him, as a personal favour, to go in the cage and undo it.

"Undo it! Why he'd kill me!" gasped the fat seaman, aghast at such
simplicity.

"I don't think he would," said his tormenter, with a bewitching smile;
"and I'll wear a lock of your hair all my life if you do. But you'd
better give it to me before you go in."

"I ain't going in," said the fat sailor shortly.

"Not for me?" queried Kate archly.

"Not for fifty like you," replied the old man firmly. "He nearly had me
when he was loose. I can't think how he got out."

"Why, I let him out," said Miss Rumbolt airily. "Just for a little run.
How would you like to be shut up all day?"

The sailor was just going to tell her with more fluency than politeness
when he was interrupted. "That'll do," said the skipper, who had come
behind them. "Go for'ard, you. There's been enough of this fooling;
the lady thought you had taken the ship. Thompson, I'll take the helm;
there's a little wind coming. Stand by there."

He walked aft and relieved the steersman, awkwardly conscious that the
men were becoming more and more interested in the situation, and also
that Kate could hear some of their remarks. As he pondered over the
subject, and tried to think of a way out of it, the cause of all the
trouble came and stood by him.

"Did my father know of this?" she inquired.

"I don't know that he did exactly," said the skipper uneasily. "I just
told him not to expect you back that night."

"And what did he say?" said she.

"Said he wouldn't sit up," said the skipper, grinning,