"Yes, yes! I reckernize the channel buoys. That's Orrin Petty's place on our weather bow, ain't it?" The speaker, who closely followed Washy and the barrow, would have attracted attention anywhere, certainly here on the Shell Road had it not been that hour of the afternoon when most of the neighborhood womenfolk were engaged in supper preparations and were not, therefore, in sight of the highway. He was a solidly built man without being at all pursy. He had wind-bitten cheeks and a flame in his black eyes that belied his age. Although he walked with a cane and his hair and beard were gray, there was a brisk air about the man that at the very start seemed to reduce his actual age by half a score of years. A fringe of whisker framed his mahogany face and his lips were cleanly shaven. Nowhere out of Ireland save in longshore communities or among old-fashioned seafaring men are these "galways" still popular. He was dressed in a pilot-cloth suit, much wrinkled from lying, in all probability, for more than one voyage in that same chest that Washy Gallup now proceeded to wheel before him. "Here we be, Cap'n," observed Washy finally, turning into the lane that led to the house already identified. "I see! I see!" agreed the mariner, staring curiously at the high-shouldered, unpainted frame dwelling which stood with an unsocial end to the road. But there was a pleasant side yard into which the lane led--grassy, with trees bordering it and a clothes'-drying green in the middle. There was a girl taking clothes from the lines in this yard and it was upon her the visitor's gaze became fixed. She was of a slim figure, yet with prettily rounded limbs, as he could easily see while she stood with the fresh breeze blowing the scant gingham frock about her. Her arms were bare almost to her shoulders, displaying dimpled elbows and wrists. The short skirt became even shorter as she stood on tip-toes to reach a particularly obdurate clothespin, and the turn of her leg and ankle was as trim as that of a yacht's spars. The neck of the simple frock she wore was cut square. As she turned toward the two men approaching, there was revealed the rising and falling of her full bosom--like the swell of the sea itself before a storm. But her face, save the dimpled, pink chin, was smothered in an enormous sunbonnet. "Where's your Uncle Orrin, Pearly?" asked Washy, dropping the handles of the wheelbarrow once more. The girl let fall the last garment she had taken from the line--a voluminous blue starched skirt--into the clothesbasket and vigorously punched it into smaller compass. Then she stood up again to face her questioner. The captain obtained a flashing glimpse of clouded dark eyes and little, even white teeth between full red lips.