"I don't wonder he laughed," observed Wingate, who seemed to enjoy irritating his friend. "You must have been good as a circus."

"Humph!" grunted the depot master. "If I remember right you said YOU wa'n't any ten-cent side show under similar circumstances, Barzilla. Heave ahead, Bailey!"

Captain Stitt, unruffled, resumed:

"I tell you, I had to take it that evenin'," he said. "All the time I was cookin' and while he was eatin' supper, Billings was rubbin' it into me about my bein' scared. Called me all the saltwater-hero names he could think of-'Hobson' and 'Dewey' and the like of that, usin' em sarcastic, of course. Finally, he said he remembered readin' in school, when he was little, about a girl hero, name of Grace Darlin'. Said he cal'lated, if I didn't mind, he'd call me Grace, 'cause it was heroic and yet kind of fitted in with my partic'lar brand of bravery. I didn't answer much; he had me down, and I knew it. Likewise I judged he was more or less out of his head; no sane man would yell the way he done aboard that automobile.

"Then he commenced to spin yarns about himself and his doin's, and pretty soon it come out that he'd been a cowboy afore young Stumpton give up ranchin' and took to automobilin'. That cleared the sky line some, of course; I'd read consider'ble about cowboys in the ten-cent books my nephew fetched home when he was away to school. I see right off that Billings was the livin' image of Deadwood Dick and Wild Bill and the rest in them books; they yelled and howled and hadn't no regard for life and property any more'n he had. No, sir! He wa'n't no crazier'n they was; it was in the breed, I judged.

"'I sure wish I had you on the ranch, Grace,' says he. 'Why don't you come West some day? That's where a hero like you would show up strong.'

"'Godfrey mighty!' I sings out. 'I wouldn't come nigh such a nest of crazy murderers as that fur no money! I'd sooner ride in that automobile of yours, and St. Peter himself couldn't coax me into THAT again, not if 'twas fur a cruise plumb up the middle of the golden street!'

"I meant it, too, and the next afternoon when it come time to start for home he found out that I meant it. We'd shot a lot of ducks, and Billings was havin' such a good time that I had to coax and tease him as if he was a young one afore he'd think of quittin'. It was quarter of six when he backed the gas cart out of the shed. I was uneasy, 'cause 'twas past low-water time, and there was fog comin' on.

"'Brace up, Dewey!' says he. 'Get in.'

"'No, Mr. Billings,' says I. 'I ain't goin' to get in. You take that craft of yourn home, and I'll sail up alongside in my dory.'

"'In your which?' says he.

"'In my dory,' I says. 'That's her hauled up on the beach abreast the shanty.'

"He looked at the dory and then at me.

"'Go on!' says he. 'You ain't goin' to pack yourself twelve mile on THAT SHINGLE?'

"'Sartin I am! says I. 'I ain't takin' no more chances.'

"Do you know, he actually seemed to think I was crazy then. Seemed to figger that the dory wa'n't big enough; and she's carried five easy afore now. We had an argument that lasted twenty minutes more, and the fog driftin' in nigher all the time. At last he got sick of arguin', ripped out somethin' brisk and personal, and got his tin shop to movin'.

"'You want to cross over to the ocean side,' I called after him. 'The Cut-through's been dredged at the bay end, remember.'

"'Be hanged!' he yells, or more emphatic. And off he whizzed. I see him go, and fetched a long breath. Thanks to a merciful Providence, I'd come so fur without bein' buttered on the undercrust of that automobile or scalped with its crazy shover's bowie knife.

"Ten minutes later I was beatin' out into the bay in my dory. All around was the fog, thin as poorhouse gruel so fur, but thickenin' every minute. I was worried; not for myself, you understand, but for that cowboy shover. I was afraid he wouldn't fetch t'other side of the Cut-through. There wa'n't much wind, and I had to make long tacks. I took the inshore channel, and kept listenin' all the time. And at last, when 'twas pretty dark and I was cal'latin' to be about abreast of the bay end of the Cut-through, I heard from somewheres ashore a dismal honkin' kind of noise, same as a wild goose might make if 'twas chokin' to death and not resigned to the worst.

"'My land!' says I. 'It's happened!' And I come about and headed straight in for the beach. I struck it just alongside the gov'ment shanty. The engineers had knocked off work for the week, waitin' for supplies, but they hadn't took away their dunnage.

"'Hi!' I yells, as I hauled up the dory. 'Hi-i-i! Billings, where be you?'

"The honkin' stopped and back comes the answer; there was joy in it.

"'What? Is that Cap'n Stitt?'

"'Yes,' I sings out. 'Where be you?'

"'I'm stuck out here in the middle of the crick. And there's a flood on. Help me, can't you?'

"Next minute I was aboard the dory, rowin' her against the tide up the channel. Pretty quick I got where I could see him through the fog and dark. The auto was on the flat in the middle of the Cut-through, and the water was hub high already. Billings was standin' up on the for'ard thwart, makin' wet footmarks all over them expensive cushions.

"'Lord,' says he, 'I sure am glad to see you, pard! Can we get to land, do you think?'

"'Land?' says I, makin' the dory fast alongside and hoppin' out into the drink. ''Course we can land! What's the matter with your old derelict? Sprung a leak, has it?'

"He went on to explain that the automobile had broke down when he struck the flat, and he couldn't get no farther. He'd been honkin' and howlin' for ten year at least, so he reckoned.

"'Why in time,' says I, 'didn't you mind me and go up the ocean side? And why in nation didn't you go ashore and-But never mind that now. Let me think. Here! You set where you be.'

"As I shoved off in the dory again he turned loose a distress signal.

"'Where you goin'?' he yells. 'Say, pard, you ain't goin' to leave me here, are you?'

"'I'll be back in a shake,' says I, layin' to my oars. 'Don't holler so! You'll have the life-savers down here, and then the joke'll be on us. Hush, can't you? I'll be right back!'

"I rowed up channel a little ways, and then I sighted the place I was bound for. Them gov'ment folks had another shanty farther up the Cut-through. Moored out in front of it was a couple of big floats, for their stone sloops to tie up to at high water. The floats were made of empty kerosene barrels and planks, and they'd have held up a house easy. I run alongside the fust one, cut the anchor cable with my jackknife, and next minute I was navigatin' that float down channel, steerin' it with my oar and towin' the dory astern.

"'Twas no slouch of a job, pilotin' that big float, but part by steerin' and part by polin' I managed to land her broadside on to the auto. I made her fast with the cable ends and went back after the other float. This one was a bigger job than the fust, but by and by that gas wagon, with planks under her and cable lashin's holdin' her firm, was restin' easy as a settin' hen between them two floats. I unshipped my mast, fetched it aboard the nighest float, and spread the sail over the biggest part of the brasswork and upholstery.

"'There,' says I, 'if it rains durin' the night she'll keep pretty dry. Now I'll take the dory and row back to the shanty after some spare anchors there is there.'

"'But what's it fur, pard?' asks Billings for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time. 'Why don't we go where it's dry? The flood's risin' all the time.'

"'Let it rise,' I says. 'I cal'late when it gets high enough them floats'll rise with it and lift the automobile up, too. If she's anchored bow and stern she'll hold, unless it comes on to blow a gale, and to-morrow mornin' at low tide maybe you can tinker her up so she'll go.'

"'Go?' says he, like he was astonished. 'Do you mean to say you're reckonin' to save the CAR?'

"'Good land!' I says, starin' at him. 'What else d'you s'pose? Think I'd let seventy-five hundred dollars' wuth of gilt-edged extravagance go to the bottom? What did you cal'late I was tryin' to save-the clam flat? Give me that dory rope; I'm goin' after them anchors. Sufferin' snakes! Where IS the dory? What have you done with it?'

"He'd been holdin' the bight of the dory rodin'. I handed it to him so's he'd have somethin' to take up his mind. And, by time, he'd forgot all about it and let it drop! And the dory had gone adrift and was out of sight.

"'Gosh!' says he, astonished-like. 'Pard, the son of a gun has slipped his halter!'

"I was pretty mad-dories don't grow on every beach plum bush-but there wa'n't nothin' to say that fitted the case, so I didn't try.

"'Humph!' says I. 'Well, I'll have to swim ashore, that's all, and go up to the station inlet after another boat. You stand by the ship. If she gets afloat afore I come back you honk and holler and I'll row after you. I'll fetch the anchors and we'll moor her wherever she happens to be. If she shouldn't float on an even keel, or goes to capsize, you jump overboard and swim ashore. I'll-'

"'Swim?' says he, with a shake in his voice. 'Why, pard, I can't swim!'

"I turned and looked at him. Shover of a two-mile-a-minute gold-plated butcher cart like that, a cowboy murderer that et his friends for breakfast-and couldn't swim! I fetched a kind of combination groan and sigh, turned back the sail, climbed aboard the automobile, and lit up my pipe.

"'What are you settin' there for?' says he. 'What are you goin' to do?'

"'Do?' says I. 'Wait, that's all-wait and smoke. We won't have to wait long.'

"My prophesyin' was good. We didn't have to wait very long. It was pitch dark, foggy as ever, and the tide a-risin' fast. The floats got to be a-wash. I shinned out onto 'em, picked up the oar that had been left there, and took my seat again. Billings climbed in, too, only-and it kind of shows the change sence the previous evenin'-he was in the passenger cockpit astern, and I was for'ard in the pilot house. For a reckless daredevil he was actin' mighty fidgety.

"And at last one of the floats swung off the sand. The automobile tipped scandalous. It looked as if we was goin' on our beam ends. Billings let out an awful yell. Then t'other float bobbed up and the whole shebang, car and all, drifted out and down the channel.

"My lashin's held-I cal'lated they would. Soon's I was sure of that I grabbed up the oar and shoved it over the stern between the floats. I hoped I could round her to after we passed the mouth of the Cut-through, and make port on the inside beach. But not in that tide. Inside of five minutes I see 'twas no use; we was bound across the bay.