adn't been a narrow-fool, an' awful sot
in my way, instead o' takin' the loss of Roxana Lee to heart, I'd 'a'
braced up an' gone right ahead an' looked fer one o' the right sort.
I've learned jest a short time back that I'd gone off on the wrong
track. When I revived that fine-lookin' foreign woman an' she opened
those eyes--such beautiful brown eyes!--an' looked at me so
appealin'-like an' called me Doctor, I jest couldn't he'p but wish that
she'd talk to me a leetle more, but fate was agin me, an' she was mum as
an adder."

Captain Ichabod fell silent as he undressed for the night, extinguished
the light and stretched himself luxuriously on his bed. As he snuggled
down into the blankets with a capacious yawn, he drowsily spoke aloud
yet once again.

"Wall, hanged if I 'lowed this mornin' when I woke up at the station,
that to-night I'd be a-layin' here so peaceable-like an' jest a-pinin'
fer sleep. This shack an' this bunk has had a woman in 'em, but I don't
reckin it has hurt 'em none after all. I can sleep, you bet. Uncle Icky
may dream a leetle might, but it won't be about Roxana Lee."

It was not until the sun was more than an hour high that the old
fisherman opened his eyes again to the realization that another day had
come. When he felt the warm rays of the summer sun upon his cheek he
knew that he had slept beyond his usual time of waking, which stirred
him to a fleeting anger against himself. He got up quickly, and while he
dressed, admonished himself harshly.

"Betwixt the rust o' time an' a thievin' yachtsman, ye're plumb out o'
time, Ichabod. If ye aim to be a successful fisherman in the future as
in the past, you must either find ye another rooster, or buy a clock,
an' I reckin that a clock, what will run, but can't run away, is the
thing fer you."

Breakfast over, Ichabod busied himself in getting his nets and other
fishing paraphernalia straightened out, for in his hurry to put them out
of harm's way as the big blow came on, he had got them pretty badly
tangled. It was mid-forenoon before he considered that things about the
shack and door yard were about as they should be at the place of a
first-class fisherman. Occasionally as he worked, he would glance toward
the oyster rocks, where lay the remains of _The Isabel_, and he would
wonder once again what could have been the occasion of the curious crime
that had resulted in the death of the man chained to the engine. But all
his musings brought only