Cap'n Jonah dragged from the breast pocket of his pilot coat a long envelope, much stained and worn. From this he produced the ornate certificate of the Little Sandy Oil and Coal Company, which stated upon its face that he was the owner of two thousand shares in the capital stock of the concern. A third pair of eyes, one very much "bunged up" at present, stared at the certificate. Tom Petty had seen that document before! "Two thousand!" murmured Cap't Abe. "Hi-mighty! Look here! This paper says the sheers have gone to fifteen dollars already. By the great jib boom, Cap'n Hand! That there document in your hand is worth thirty thousand dollars!" Cap'n Jonah stared at the storekeeper in utter bewilderment at first. He repeated slowly: "Thirty thousand dollars? Whatever!" "There's your fortune, Cap'n Hand!" cried the storekeeper in vast delight. "An' a fortune that's wuth while. You needn't worry about the Pettys no more. Nor about Pearly----" "Belay all!" gasped Cap'n Jonah, hoarsely, and laying a restraining hand on the storekeeper's knee. "Don't say a word to nobody." "Huh?" "Not a word," repeated Cap'n Jonah, sternly. "I don't want folks to know about _this_ fortune. Above all, don't let that fish trainer, Helmford, hear a word about it. For if he does, like as not he'll slip his moorings again and run out to sea. He's got a fool conviction, like 'Liphalet Truitt, that if a woman's got a little tad of money, he mustn't marry her." He turned quickly to cast a suspicious glance at Tom Petty. The battered youth had fallen back on the pillow and his eyes were closed. To tell the truth, Tom was pretty near all in! CHAPTER XXIX CHRISTMAS EVE AT CAP'N ABE'S The gale abated toward evening. The sky was clearing when 'Liphalet Truitt came out of his door and started down the Shell Road toward the store. It was more habit than anything else that took him to Cap'n Abe's. The cloud that had for these past few weeks overshadowed the lonely bachelor who dwelt beside the Mariner's Chapel, rested more heavily than ever upon his mind and heart this Christmas Eve. His perilous adventure with Miss Sue that afternoon had racked his soul more than it had his body. As they had clung together there in the storm on the face of the precipice, he felt that so they should cling together against all the buffetings of life. But fate cruelly separated them. Sue's fortune kept them apart. He shrank from having the neighbors point him out as a money-seeker--a man who had married a woman for her fortune. And in addition, there was Cap'n Jonah Hand--a much more masterful man than the ex-steward--who had seemed to take Miss Sue by storm. The picture he had last seen in Cap'n Abe's living room, when the doctor's sister had run to sympathize with the unmasked captain, was etched upon 'Liphalet's memory so deeply that he believed he could never forget it.