blood running from his nose and his cheek swollen as though he had a walnut in it.

“You’re goin’ to crawl now, are ye?” he yelled.

“It’s foolish and wicked for us to act like this,” said I, hastily. “What will your father and my mother say?”

“I don’t care what they say!” he shouted, wildly. “I’ll make you wish you’d never struck me, Clint Webb.”

He sprang aft again. I caught the glimmer of moonlight upon something he clutched in his hand. “What are you doing, Paul?” I cried.

But he plunged toward me, his dark features writhing in passion. At the moment Paul Downes was a murderer at heart; although I believed I could beat him in any fair fight, the weapon in his hand frightened me.

“Put it down, Paul! Put it down!” I begged of him. But he was on top of me in a breath and we rolled over and over in the sloop’s cockpit. Why it was that he did not seriously injure me, I cannot tell to this day! He struck at me viciously a dozen times; but by a miracle I escaped even a scratch.

Suddenly I caught his wrist, twisting it so that the open claspknife shot out of his hand. The relief I felt at this must have renewed my strength. In another instant I had rolled him over upon his face and knelt upon him so that he could not move. There was a piece of codline in my pocket and I had his wrists knotted behind him in short order—nor was I particular whether I hurt him, or not! Then I stood up and rolled him over with my foot.

“There!” I panted; “if ever a fellow deserved jailing, you’re that fellow, Paul Downes.”

“I’ll fix you for this! I’ll fix you for this!” he kept blubbering.

I was bruised and lame myself (especially where Paul had kicked me in the leg) and now I discovered that my right coatsleeve was slit from the shoulder to the wrist. I had just escaped suffering a dangerous wound.

“Aren’t you a pretty fellow?” I said, showing him this rent.

“I wish I’d got you!” he snarled so viciously that I was really startled.

“You won’t feel that way when you cool down,” I said.

“I won’t cool down. I’ll get square with you for this if I wait ten years,” he declared.

“You’re for all the world like your father,” I said, hotly; “and he’s as revengeful a person as I ever saw.”

“Is that so?” retorted Paul. “Well, he isn’t like your father was—he had to commit suicide to get out of trouble——”

“What do you mean?” I cried, amazed.

But Paul bit his lip and fell silent. He nevertheless looked at me with so threatening a scowl that, had he not been tied hard and fast, I should have been on the lookout for another cowardly attack.

“What nonsense is that you said?” I repeated. “What do you know about my father?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” returned my cousin, sullenly.

I recovered myself then, believing he was only trying to fret me. “You needn’t talk nonsense,” I said. “If you mean to say that my father made way with himself, why you’re simply silly! Everybody knows that he was drowned while fishing, over there off White Rock.”

“So everybody knows it, hey?” he responded, with a most exasperating air of knowing something that I didn’t know. “All right. I’m glad that folks know so much. But let me tell you, Clint Webb, that you and your ma’d be paupers now if he hadn’t got drowned as he did. It was the only thing he could do.”

“You’d better drop it,” I advised him, scornfully. “You’d much better be thinking of what will happen to you because of this evening’s work. You can’t bother me by any such silly talk.”

“Oh, I can’t hey?” he snarled in a tone that, defenceless as he was, tempted me to kick him.

But just then the sail of the sloop began to fill. I ran to the tiller and brought her head around. A little breeze had sprung up and the Wavecrest was under good way again. In a few moments we passed the light at the entrance to the harbor, and tacked for our anchorage. My mother’s property did not include shore rights, so we had no private landing at which to tie the sloop, but moored her at a buoy in the quiet cove near the ferry dock.

“What do you mean to do with me?” asked Paul, having been mighty quiet for the last few minutes.

“I’m going to march you up to the house and hand you over to your father. And if I have any influence with mother at all, both you and he will pack your dunnage and leave in the morning.”

He fell silent again until I had dropped the sail and picked up our float. When the Wavecrest was fast he asked more meekly:

“Aren’t you going to take this cord off my wrist?”

“No. You’re going up to the house in just that fix.”

“I won’t do it!” he cried with a sudden burst of rage.

“Then you’ll stay here while I go up and tell them where you are.”

He didn’t like that idea, either, and whined: “Don’t be so mean, Clint. I don’t want to go up to the house this way. What will folks think?”

“‘What will folks think?’” I repeated in amazement. “I s’pose that’s the first thing you’d worried about if you’d cut me with that knife.”

He said no more, but he gave me a threatening look which, had I been of a nervous temperament, might have kept me awake nights. When I drew the tender alongside he stepped in without further urging and sat down in the stern. I rowed ashore. Fortunately for the tender feelings of my cousin there wasn’t a soul in sight when we landed. I fastened the boat, and then, with the oars on my shoulder and the slack of the codline in my hand, start him up the shell road.

“Let me go, Clint,” he begged again.

“Not for Joe!”

“Then you’ll be sorry the longest day you live,” he cried, his ugly face suddenly convulsed.

And he was right; but I did not believe it at the time.

My mother’s summer home was built upon the highest point of Bolderhead Neck and commanded a view of both the ocean and the inlet, or harbor, around which Old Bolderhead was built.

My mother’s early life had not been spent near the water; her people dwelt inland. My maternal grandfather owned half a township and was a very influential man. Naturally my mother had lived in affluence during her girlhood and it was considered by her friends a great mistake on her part when she married my father. He was a ship’s surgeon when they were married and his only income was derived from the practise of his profession. He established himself as a physician in Bolderhead after the wedding; they lived simply, and I was their only child.

Grandfather didn’t forgive mother for marrying a poor man. The old gentleman didn’t get along well with his relatives, anyway. He hadn’t liked the man his oldest daughter married, Mr. Chester Downes. When I grew old enough to understand the character of Mr. Downes I could not blame grandfather for his bad opinion of the man! Aunt Alice dying before grandfather, Mr. Downes could never hope to handle much of grandfather’s money. There was a sum set aside for Paul in grandfather’s will. And even that Mr. Downes could not touch; it was tied up until Paul was of age. After several large charities had been remembered in the will the residue of the property had come to my