after the vanished vision. Then he stepped blindly forward, tripped over something—"his off hind leg," so Captain Sol afterwards vowed—and fell sprawling, the express package beneath him.

The crash of glass reached the ears of the depot master. He broke away from the conductor and ran toward his prostrate "assistant." Pushing aside the delighted and uproarious bystanders, he forcibly helped the young man to rise.

"What in time?" he demanded.

Issy agonizingly held the package to his ear and shook it.

"I—I'm afraid somethin's cracked," he faltered.

The crowd set up a whoop. Ed Crocker appeared to be in danger of strangling.

"Cracked!" repeated Captain Sol. "Cracked!" he smiled, in spite of himself. "Yes, somethin's cracked. It's that head of yours, Issy. Here, let's see!"

He snatched the package from the McKay hands and inspected it.

"Smashed to thunder!" he declared. "Who's the lucky one it belongs to? Humph!" He read the inscription aloud, "Major Cuthbertson S. Hardee. The Major, hey! . . . Well, Is, you take the remains inside and you and I'll hold services over it later."

"I—I didn't go to do it," protested the frightened Issy.

"Course you didn't. If you had you wouldn't. You're like the feller in Scriptur', you leave undone the things you ought to do and do them that—All right, Jim! Let her go! Cast off!"

The conductor waved his hand, the engine puffed, the bell rang, and the train moved onward. For another twelve hours East Harniss was left marooned by the outside world.

Beriah Higgins and the mail bag were already in the post office. Thither went the crowd to await the sorting and ultimate distribution. A short, fat little man lingered and, walking up to the depot master, extended his hand.

"Hello, Sol!" he said, smiling. "Thought I'd stop long enough to say 'Howdy,' anyhow."

"Why, Bailey Stitt!" cried the Captain. "How are you? Glad to see you. Thought you was down to South Orham, takin' out seasick parties for the Ocean House, same kind of a job I used to have in Wellmouth."

"I am," replied Captain Stitt. "That is, I was. Just now I've run over here to see about contractin' for a supply of clams and quahaugs for our boarders. You never see such a gang to eat as them summer folks, in your life. Barzilla Wingate, he says the same about his crowd. He's comin' on the mornin' train from Wellmouth."

"You don't tell me. I ain't seen Barzilla for a long spell. Where you stoppin'? Come up to the house, won't you?"

"Can't. I'm goin' to put up over to Obed Gott's. His sister, Polena Ginn, is a relation of mine by marriage. So long! Obed's gone on ahead to tell Polena to put the kettle on. Maybe Obed and I'll be back again after I've had supper."

"Do. I'll be round here for two or three hours yet."

He entered the depot. Except the forlorn Issy, who sat in a corner, holding the express package in his lap, Simeon Phinney was the only person in the waiting room.

"Come on now, Sol!" pleaded Sim. "I want to hear the rest of that about you and Williams. You left off in the most ticklish place possible, out of spite, I do believe. I'm hangin' on to that boat in the breakers until I declare I believe I'm catchin' cold just from imagination."

"Wait a minute, Sim," said the depot master. Then he turned to his assistant.

"Issy," he said, "this is about the nineteenth time you've done just this sort of thing. You're no earthly use and I ought to give you your clearance papers. But I can't, you're too—well—ornamental. You've got to be punished somehow and I guess the best way will be to send you right up to Major Hardee's and let you give him the remnants. He'll want to know how it happened, and you tell him the truth. The TRUTH, understand? If you invent any fairy tales out of those novels of yours I'll know it by and by and—well, YOU'LL know I know. No remarks, please. Git!"

Issy hesitated, seemed about to speak, thought better of it, took up package and cap, and "got."

"Let's see," said the Captain, sitting down in one of the station chairs and lighting a fresh cigar; "where was Williams and I in that yarn of mine? Oh, yes, I could see land and cal'lated we was goin' to bump. Well, we did. Steerin' anyways but dead ahead was out of the question, and all I could do was set my teeth and trust in my bein' a member of the church. The Shootin' Star hit that beach like she was the real article. Overboard went oar and canvas and grub pails, and everything else that wa'n't nailed down, includin' Fatty and me. I grabbed him by the collar and wallowed ashore.

"'Awk! hawk!' he gasps, chokin', 'I'm drownded.'

"I let him BE drownded, for the minute. I had the launch to think of, and somehow or 'nother I got hold of her rodin' and hauled the anchor up above tide mark. Then I attended to my passenger.

"'Where are we?' he asks.

"I looked around. Close by was nothin' but beach-grass and seaweed and sand. A little ways off was a clump of scrub pines and bayberry bushes that looked sort of familiar. And back of them was a little board shanty that looked more familiar still. I rubbed the salt out of my eyes.

"'WELL!' says I. 'I swan to man!'

"'What is it?' he says. 'Do you know where we are? Whose house is that?'

"I looked hard at the shanty.

"'Humph!' I grunted. 'I do declare! Talk about a feller's comin' back to his own. Whose shanty is that? Well, it's mine, if you want to know. The power that looks out for the lame and the lazy has hove us ashore on Woodchuck Island, and that's a piece of real estate I own.'

"It sounds crazy enough, that's a fact; but it was true. Woodchuck Island is a little mite of a sand heap off in the bay, two mile from shore and ten from the nighest town. I'd bought it and put up a shanty for a gunnin' shack; took city gunners down there, once in a while, the fall before. That summer I'd leased it to a friend of mine, name of Darius Baker, who used it while he was lobsterin'. The gale had driven us straight in from sea, 'way past Sandy P'int and on to the island. 'Twas like hittin' a nail head in a board fence, but we'd done it. Shows what Providence can do when it sets out.

"I explained some of this to Williams as we waded through the sand to the shanty.

"'But is this Baker chap here now?' he asks.

"'I'm afraid not,' says I. 'The lobster season's about over, and he was goin' South on a yacht this week. Still, he wa'n't to go till Saturday and perhaps—'

"But the shanty was empty when we got there. I fumbled around in the tin matchbox and lit the kerosene lamp in the bracket on the wall. Then I turned to Williams.

"'Well,' says I, 'we're lucky for once in—'

"Then I stopped. When he went overboard the water had washed off his hat. Likewise it had washed off his long black hair—which was a wig—and his head was all round and shiny and bald, like a gull's egg out in a rain storm."

"I knew he wore a wig," interrupted Phinney.

"Of course you do. Everybody does now. But he wa'n't such a prophet in Israel then as he's come to be since, and folks wa'n't acquainted with his personal beauties.

"'What are you starin' at?' he asks.

"I fetched a long breath. 'Nothin',' says I. 'Nothin'.'

"But for the rest of that next ha'f hour I went around in a kind of daze, as if MY wig had gone and part of my head with it. When a feller has been doin' a puzzle it kind of satisfies him to find out the answer. And I'd done my puzzle.

"I knew where I'd met Mr. Williams afore."

"You did?" cried Simeon.

"Um-hm. Wait a while. Well, Fatty went to bed, in one of the hay bunks, pretty soon after that. He stripped to his underclothes and turned in under the patchwork comforters. He was too beat out to want any supper, even if there'd been any in sight. I built a fire in the rusty cook stove and dried his duds and mine. Then I set down in the busted chair and begun to think. After a spell I got up and took account of stock, as you might