hat they been wishin' for--an' a wreck off shore. Land sakes!
if they'd ever _seed_ a ship go to pieces afore their very eyes they
wouldn't ask for a second helpin'--no, ma'am!"

That evening threatening clouds rolled up from seaward and mantled the
arch of the sky. The fishing boats ran to cover in the harbor before
dark. The surf rumbled louder and louder along the shore.

And all night the sea mourned its dead over Gull Rocks.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE SCAR

Another fishfly (or was it the same that had droned accompaniment to
Cap'n' Abe's story-telling upon a former occasion?) boomed against the
dusty panes of the window while the fretful, sand-laden wind swept
searchingly about the store on the Shell Road.

It was early afternoon; but a green and dreary light lay upon sea and
land as dim as though the hour was that of sunset. In the silence
punctuating the desultory conversation, the sharp _swish, swish_ of the
sand upon the panes almost drowned the complaint of the fishfly.

"We're going to have a humdinger of a gale," announced Milt Baker, the
last to enter and bang the store door. "She's pullin' 'round into the
no'th-east right now, and I tell Mandy she might's well make up her
mind to my lyin' up tight an' dry for a while. Won't be no clams
shipped from _these_ flats to-morrow."

"High you'll likely be," agreed the storekeeper. "How _dry_ ye'll be,
Milt, remains to be seen."

"_In_-side, or _aout_?" chuckled Cap'n Joab, for

Milt Baker's failing was not hidden under a bushel.

Amiel hastened to toll attention away from his side partner. "This
wind's driv' them picture folks to cover," he said. "They was makin'
some fillums over there on the wreck of the _Goldrock_, that's laid out
four year or so in Ham Cove------"

"Nearer five year," put in Cap'n Joab, a stickler for facts.

"You air right, cap'n," agreed Washy Gallup.

"Well," said Amiel, "four _or_ five. The heave of her made ha'f of 'em
sick, and that big actor man, Bane, got knocked off into the water an'
'twas more by good luck than good management he warn't drowned. I
cal'late _he's_ got enough."

"The gale that brought the _Goldrock_ ashore had just such another
beginning as this," Cap'n Joab said reflectively. "But she'd never
been wrecked on a lee shore if her crew had acted right. They
mutineed, you know."

"The sculpins!" ejaculated the storekeeper briskly. "Can't excuse
that. Anything but a crew that'll turn on the