“As near's I can find out by nosing around a little that indictment is a secret one--even if it really was returned. And I'm half inclined to think there wasn't any indictment! Perhaps those officers were only sent out to get you and hold you as a witness. Fogg has been doing most of the talking about there being an indictment. However it is, if they don't want you just yet I wouldn't go up to a cell door, son, and holler and pound and ask to be let in. Law has quite a way of giving a man what he hollers for. You go away and let me do the peeking and listening for you around these parts. I'm collecting a little line of stuff on this water-front. Haven't much else to do, these days!” “I reckon my first hunch was the right one, sir!' I'll go along home. If you hear anybody with a badge on inquiring for me tell him I'm fishing on the _Ethel and May_.” “That's a mean job for you, son. But I guess I'd better not say anything about it, seeing what I have shanghaied you into.” “It has not been your fault or mine, what has happened, sir. I am not whining!” “By gad! I know you ain't! But get ready to growl when the right time comes, and keep your teeth filed! When it's our turn to bite we'll make a bulldog grip of it!” He emphasized the vigor of that grip in his farewell handshake. But Mayo did not reflect with much enthusiasm on Captain Wass's metaphorical summons to combat. Returning to Maquoit, the young man decided that he was more like a beaten dog slinking back with canine anxiety to nurse his wounds in secret. His experiences had been too dreadful and too many in the last few days to be separated and assimilated. He had been like a man stunned by a fall--paralyzed by a blow. Now the agonizing tingle of memory and despair made his thoughts an exquisite torture. He tried to put Alma Marston out of those thoughts. He did not dare to try to find a place for her in the economy of his affairs. However, she and he had been down to the gates of death together, and he realized that the experience had had its effect on her nature; he believed that it had developed her character as well. Insistently the memory of her parting words was with him, and he knew, in spite of his brutal and furious efforts to condemn her, that love was not dead and that hope still lived. He swung aboard the _Ethel and May_ one afternoon, after he had waited patiently for her arrival with her fare. “I have come back to fish with you, Captain Candage, until my troubles are straightened out--if they ever are.” Captain Candage was silent, controlling some visible emotions. “I have come back to be with folks who won't talk too much about those troubles,” he added, gloomily. “Exactly,” agreed the skipper. “Nothing is ever gained by stirring up trouble after it has been well cooked. Swing the pot back over the fire, I say, and let it simmer till it cools off of itself. I thought you would come back.” “Why?”