Cap'n Amazon stopped in his story-telling and was silent for an instant. Louise, who had stood at the inner doorway listening, turned to go, when she heard the substitute storekeeper finally say: "_Curlew_, out o' Boston." The name caught the girl's instant attention and she felt suddenly apprehensive. "Here's news o' her," Cap'n Joab said in a hushed voice. "And it ain't good news, Cap'n Silt." "What d'ye mean?" asked the latter. "Report from Fayal. A Portugee fisherman's picked up and brought in a boat with 'Curlew' painted on her stern, and he saw spars and wreckage driftin' near the empty boat. There's been a hurricane out there. It--it looks bad, Cap'n Silt." Before the latter could speak again Louise was at his side and had seized his tattooed arm. "Uncle Amazon!" she gasped. "Not the _Curlew_? Didn't I tell you before? That is the schooner daddy-prof's party sailed upon. Can there be two Curlews?" "My soul and body!" exclaimed Cap'n Joab. It was Cap'n Amazon who kept his head. "Not likely to be two craft of the same name and register--no, my dear," he said, patting her hand. "But don't take this so much to heart. It's only rumor. A dozen things might have happened to set that boat adrift. Ain't that so, Cap'n Joab?" Cap'n Joab swallowed hard and nodded; but his wind-bitten face displayed much distress. "I had no idee the gal's father was aboard that schooner with Cap'n Abe." "Why, sure! I forgot it for a minute," Cap'n Amazon said cheerfully. "There, there, my dear. Don't take on so. Abe's with your father, if so be anything has happened the _Curlew_; and Abe'll take keer o' him. Sure he will! Ain't he a Silt? And lemme tell you a Silt never backed down when trouble riz up to face him. No, sir!" "But if they have been wrecked?" groaned Louise. "Both father and Uncle Abram. What shall we do about it, Uncle Amazon?" In this moment of trouble she clung to the master mariner as her single recourse. And impostor or no, he who called himself Amazon Silt did not fail her. "There ain't nothing much we can rightly do at this minute, Niece Louise," he told her firmly, still patting her morsel of a hand in his huge one. "We'll watch the noospapers and I'll send a telegraph dispatch to the ship news office in N'York and git just the latest word there is 'bout the _Curlew_. "You be brave, girl--you be brave. Abe an' Professor Grayling being together, o' course they'll get along all right. One'll help t'other. Two pullin' on the sheet can allus h'ist the sail quicker than one. Keep your heart up, Louise." She looked at him strangely for a moment. The tears frankly standing in his eyes, the quivering muscles of his face, his expression of keen sorrow for her fears--all impressed her. She suddenly kissed him in gratitude, impostor though she knew him to be, and then ran away. Cap'n Joab hissed across the counter: "Ye don't _know_ that Cap'n Abe's on that there craft, Am'zon Silt!"