t she had not fed the chickens, and hurried away to
perform that humane duty, gallantly escorted by Captain Perez. The
Captain, by the way, was apparently much taken with the plump spinster
and, although usually rather bashful where ladies were concerned, had
managed to keep up a sort of side conversation with Miss Patience while
the storytelling was going on. But Ralph and Elsie and Mrs. Snow were
hungry for more tales, and Captain Davis obligingly told them.

"One of the wust wrecks we ever had off here," he said, "was the
Bluebell, British ship, she was: from Singapore, bound to Boston, and
loaded with hemp. We see her about off that p'int there, jest at dusk,
and she was makin' heavy weather then. It come on to snow soon as it got
dark, and blow--don't talk! Seems to me 'twas one of the meanest nights
I ever saw. 'Tween the snow flyin' and the dark you couldn't see
two feet ahead of you. We was kind of worried about the vessel all
evenin'--for one thing she was too close in shore when we see her
last--but there wa'n't nothin' to be done except to keep a weather eye
out for signs of trouble.

"Fust thing we knew of the wreck was when the man on patrol up the
beach--Philander Vose 'twas--telephoned from the shanty that a ship's
long-boat had come ashore at Knowles' Cove, two mile above the station.
That was about one o'clock in the mornin'. 'Bout h'af-past two Sim
Gould--he was drownded the next summer, fishin' on the Banks--telephoned
from the shanty BELOW the station--the one a mile or so 'tother side of
the cable house, Mr. Hazeltine--that wreckage was washin' up abreast of
where he was; that was six miles from where the longboat come ashore.
So there we was. There wa'n't any way of tellin' whereabouts she was
layin'; she might have been anywheres along them six miles, and you
couldn't hear nothin' nor see nothin'. But anyhow, the wreckage kept
comin' in below the cable station, so I jedged she was somewheres in
that neighborhood and we got the boat out--on the cart, of course--and
hauled it down there.

"'Twas a tremendous job, too, that haulin' was. We had the horse and
the whole of us helpin' him, but I swan! I begun to think we'd never git
anywheres. 'Tween the wind and the sand and the snow I thought we'd flap
to pieces, like a passel of shirts on a clothes line. But we got there
after a spell, and then there was nothin' to do but wait for daylight.

"'Bout seven o'clock the snow let up a little bit, and th