awakening as from a dream filled with horrors. Something lying dormant
in the com-mon breast had stirred. It was the unbeaten spirit that would
not die. These men and women lifted up their heads and beheld the star
of hope undimmed. In a flash, the aspect changed.

"We must start all over again," was the cry that awoke them, and from
that time on there was no such word as fail in the lexicon of Trigger
Island.

Slowly, laboriously out of the ashes rose a new hull, a stauncher one
than its ill-fated predecessor. The year wasted in the building of the
first ship was lamented but not mourned. Cheerfulness, even optimism,
prevailed throughout the village. No man, no woman lifted the voice
of complaint. Resignation took the form of stoicism. A sort of dogged
taciturnity was measurably relieved by the never-failing spirit of
camaraderie. There was even a touch of bravado in the attitude of these
people toward each other,--as of courage kept up by scoffing. Even
Death, on his sombre visits, was regarded with a strange derision by
those who continued to spin. They had cheated him not once but many
times, and they mocked him in their souls.

"I'm not afraid of Death," was Buck Chizler's contribution. "I've just
discovered that Death is the rottenest coward in the world. He either
waits till you get too blamed old to fight, or else he jumps on you when
you ain't looking, or when you're so weak from sickness you don't care
what happens. I used to be afraid of Death. And why? Because I wasn't
onto the old bum; Why, look at what he does. He jumps onto weeny little
babies and feeble old women and--and horses. Now, I'm onto him, and I
ain't got any use for a cheap sport,--not me."

The little community had taken to religion. As is invariably the case,
adversity seeks surcease in some form of piety. Men who had not entered
a church since the days of their childhood, men who had scoffed at the
sentimentality of religion, now found consolation in the thing they had
once despised. They were abashed and bewildered at first, as one after
another they fell into the habit of attending services. They were
surprised to find something that they needed, something that made life
simpler and gentler for them, something uplifting.

"We're a queer mess of Puritans," reflected Randolph Fitts. "You know
that parrot of old Bob Carr's? Well, he took it out and wrung its neck
last night,--after all the time, and trouble, and patience he spent in
givi