as
been sent to market and sold to pay for them.

The responsibility of getting these supplies to them rested heavily on
the shoulders of my good friend John Bourne, the only trader in the
district. Women, children, whole families, were looking to him for
those "things" which if he failed to furnish would mean such woeful
consequences that he could not face the winter without at least a
serious attempt to provide them.

In the harbour lay his schooner, a saucy little craft which he had
purchased only a short while before. He knew her sea qualities; and as
the ship tugged at her chains, moving to and fro on the swell, she
kept a fine "swatch" of open water round her. Like some tethered
animal, she seemed to be begging him to give her another run before
Jack Frost gripped her in his chilly arms for months to come. The fact
that he was a married man with hostages to fortune round his knees
might have justified his conscience in not tempting the open sea at a
time when frozen sheets and blocks choked with ice made it an open
question if even a youngster ought to take the chances. But it
happened that his "better half," like himself, had that "right stuff"
in her which thinks of itself last, and her permission for the venture
was never in question.

So Trader Bourne, being, like all our men, a sailor first and a
landsman after, with his crew of the mate and a boy, and the handicap
of a passenger, put to sea one fine afternoon in late November, his
vessel loaded with good things for his necessitous friends "up along."
He was encouraged by a light breeze which, though blowing out of the
bay and there ahead for him, gave smooth water and a clear sky.

To those who would have persuaded him to linger for a fair wind he had
cheerfully countered that the schooner had "two sides," meaning that
she could hold her own in adversity, and could claw well to windward;
besides, "'t will help to hold the Northern slob back"--that
threatening spectre of our winters.

When darkness fell, however, very little progress had been made. The
wind kept shifting against the schooner, and all hands could still
make out the distant lights of home twinkling like tiny stars,
apparently not more than a couple of miles under their lee.

"Shall us 'hard up,' and try it again at day light?" suggested the
mate. "If anything happens 't is a poor time of year to be out all
night in a small craft."

But the skipper only shrugged his shoulders, aware tha