e expected arrivals.

Jervis laughed. "I have never stopped to consider whether she is
pretty, but she is certainly very charming in her manners," he
said, with so much earnestness that Katherine instantly made up her
mind that Miss Selincourt was the kind of person she did not care
for and did not want to know.

Phil came in from the store at this moment, with a pucker of
amusement on his face.

"Stee Jenkin has brought our boat back," he said. "Oily Dave paid
him half a dollar to come, because he didn't feel like showing his
face up here just yet."

"Why not?" demanded Jervis Ferrars.

"Stee said the ice at the river mouth didn't give way until after
midnight, when it burst with a roar like cannon. When Oily Dave
got to Seal Cove last night, the water reached to the shingles of
his house; so the old fellow rowed across to Stee's hut and asked
to be taken in for the night, because he was flooded out and the
Englishman was drowned."

"But didn't Stee tell him that Mr. Ferrars was safe here with us?"
asked Mrs. Burton.

"Not a bit of it," replied Phil. "That would have spoiled sport,
don't you see? because Oily Dave was what Stee called most uncommon
resigned, and talked such a lot about going to find the body in the
morning, that they just made up their minds to let him go. He was
up by daybreak and went over to look; but when he saw the door
broken down he guessed there had been a rescue, and he was just mad
because no one had told him anything about it."

"It was rather too bad to leave him in suspense all night, poor
man," said Mrs. Burton gently.

CHAPTER XII

The First of the Fishing

For a whole week the thaw went merrily on. One by one the fishing
boats left their winter anchorage in the river, and sailed out into
the stormy waters of the bay. By the end of the week Jervis
Ferrars had so far recovered the comfortable use of his feet that
he could wear boots again and go about like other men. Directly he
was able to do this he went down to Seal Cove every day, where he
inspected every boat that was ready to put to sea, overhauled the
store shed, and quietly took command, setting Oily Dave on one side
with as little ceremony as if that worthy had never been master of
the fleet.

Oily Dave took the change in government with very bad grace indeed,
and it is probable that the life of Jervis Ferrars would have been
in very grave danger many times during the next few weeks if it had
not