"Fer the land's sake, Oly! what kind of a conniption fit do you call _this_? Can't you keep out o' trouble long enough for me to git shaved an' rid up a mite? I told ye I'd be right out," declared the exasperated Captain Littlefield. "Gimme your hand and let me help you up." "No use gettin' up with only one laig, Ozy," complained the overturned one. "Git me that timber-toe away from that savage beast. What ye keepin' here--a menagerie 'stead of a hotel, I wanter know?" "Since ever I knowed ye, Oly Littlefield--an' that was when both of us was in petticuts--you've allus managed to git into trouble more'n any other human bein' I ever met up with. Sit up in this chair like I tell ye, an' I'll git yer laig all right." Captain Littlefield showed a great deal of latent muscular strength in lifting the bigger man into one of the porch chairs. There he left him, fuming and fussing, while he went to the rescue of the wooden leg. Carolyn had snapped the leash to Prince's collar and the dog was merely mumbling the wooden leg. He evidently considered the whole business some kind of new play. The little girl's face was almost as red as that of the old fellow who had lost his leg. She felt sure that the trouble had not been of Prince's making; but she feared everybody would blame him. "Don't you fret yourself, Sissy," said Captain Littlefield, kindly. "Cousin Oly ain't responsible for what he does and says, anyway. He'd oughter been a cook. He's got the temper of one, sure 'nough." CHAPTER XIV THE DOG WITH THE BUSHY TAIL The trouble was all over long before Mamma Cameron came down; and to Carolyn's relief nobody seemed to think her dog was much to blame save the cockatoo looking man, Mr. Oliver Littlefield. Captain Ozias patched up the broken straps of his cousin's wooden leg, finished shaving himself, and stumped off with "Oly" as he called his cousin, toward the beach. It seemed that the two old men lived together in a little house that belonged to Mr. Oliver Littlefield, and had done so ever since Captain Ozias had retired from the sea. "He's as dumb and helpless about housekeepin'," Carolyn heard one of the women say, "as though he had lost a hand instead of a laig. If 'twarn't for Cap'n Ozy, Oliver Littlefield'd never have a decent mess o' victuals." "That's right," agreed another of the hotel "help." "If Cap'n Littlefield hadn't come home to the island 'bout the time Oliver's wife died, I reckon he'd ha' starved to death down there in that little house o' his. For nobody would ha' gone there to housekeep for him. He's jest as pleasant to get along with, Oly Littlefield is, as a wild tagger." Captain Littlefield came clumping back to the hotel before Carolyn went in with her mother to breakfast, and with rather a rueful grin on his mahogany face.