pursued Betty, "though he had the
lingo on his tongue and 'peared as salt as a dried pollock. It's in my
mind that he wouldn't never re'lly go to sea--'nless he was egged on to
it."

Here it was again! That same doubt as expressed by Washy Gallup--the
suggestion that Cap'n Abe Silt possessed an inborn fear of the sea that
he had never openly confessed.

"Why do you say that, Betty?" Louise hesitatingly asked the old woman.

"'Cause I've knowed Cap'n Abe for more'n twenty year, and in all that
endurin' time he's stuck as close to shore as a fiddler. With all his
bold talk about ships and sailin', I tell you he warn't a seafarin'
man."

"But what has Uncle Amazon to do with the mystery of his brother's
absence?" demanded Louise.

"Humph! If he _is_ Cap'n Abe's brother. Now, now, you don't know no
more about this old pirate than I do, Miss Lou. He influenced Cap'n
Abe somehow, or someway, so't he cut his hawser and drifted out o'
soundings--that's sure! Here this feller callin' himself Am'zon Silt
has got the store an' all it holds, an' Cap'n Abe's money, and
ev'rything."

"Oh, Betty, how foolishly you talk," sighed the girl.

"Humph! Mebbe. And then again, mebbe it ain't foolish. Them men
to-day thought they could scare that old pirate into admittin'
something if they sprung Cap'n Abe's chest on him. Oh, I knowed they
was goin' to do it," admitted Betty.

"Course, they had no idee what was in the chest. Bustin' it open was
an accident. Perry Baker's as clumsy as a cow. But you see, Miss Lou,
just how cool that ol' pirate took it all. Washy was tellin' me. He
just browbeat 'em an' left 'em with all their canvas slattin'.

"Oh, you can't tell me! That old pirate's handled a crew without no
tongs, you may lay to that! And what he's done to poor old Cap'n
Abe----"

She went away shaking a sorrowful head and without finishing her
sentence. Louise was unable to shake off the burden of doubt of Cap'n
Amazon's character and good intentions. She felt that she could not
spend the long evening in his company, and bidding him good-night
through the open store door she retired to the upper floor.

She felt that sleep was far from her eyelids on this night; therefore
she lit a candle and went into the storeroom to get something to read.
She selected a much battered volume, printed in an early year of the
nineteenth century, its title being:

LANDSMEN'S TALES:
Seafaring Yarns of a Lubber.

Loui