“You wouldn’t leave me,” said Wull, “because you couldn’t. I knows you, Jehoshaphat—I knows you.” “You better look out.” “Come, now, Jehoshaphat, is you goin’ t’ leave an old man drift out t’ sea an’ die?” Jehoshaphat was embarrassed. “Eh, Jehoshaphat?” “Well, no,” Jehoshaphat admitted, frankly. “I isn’t; leastways, not alone.” “Not alone?” anxiously. “No; not alone. I’ll go with you, Mister Wull, if you’re lonesome, an’ wants company. You sees, sir, I can’t give in. I jus’ _can’t_! I’m here, Mister Wull, in this here cranky rodney, beyond the Tombstone grounds, with a dirty gale from a point or two south o’ west about t’ break, because I’m the public o’ Satan’s Trap. I can die, sir, t’ save gossip; but I sim-plee jus’ isn’t able t’ give in. ’Twouldn’t be _right_.” “Well, _I_ won’t give in.” “Nor I, sir. So here we is—out here beyond the Tombstone grounds, you on a pan an’ me in a rodney. An’ the weather isn’t—well—not quite _kind_.” It was not. The black clouds, torn, streaming, had possessed the sky, and the night was near come. Haul-Away Head and Daddy Tool’s Point had melted with the black line of coast. Return—safe passage through the narrows to the quiet water and warm lights of Satan’s Trap—was almost beyond the most courageous hope. The wind broke from the shore in straight lines—a stout, agile wind, loosed for riot upon the sea. The sea was black, with a wind-lop upon the grave swell—a black-and-white sea, with spume in the gray air. The west was black, with no hint of other color—without the pity of purple or red. Roundabout the sea was breaking, troubled by the wind, indifferent to the white little rodney and the lives o’ men. “You better give in,” old John Wull warned. “No,” Jehoshaphat answered; “no; oh no! I won’t give in. Not _in_.” A gust turned the black sea white. “_You_ better give in,” said Jehoshaphat. John Wull shrugged his shoulders and turned his back. “Now, Mister Wull,” said Jehoshaphat, firmly, “I ’low I can’t stand this much longer. I ’low we can’t be fools much longer an’ get back t’ Satan’s Trap. I got a sail, here, Mister Wull; but, ecod! the beat t’ harbor isn’t pleasant t’ _think_ about.” “You better go home,” sneered old John Wull. “I ’low I _will_,” Jehoshaphat declared. Old John Wull came to the windward edge of the ice, and there stood frowning, with his feet submerged. “What was you sayin’?” he asked. “That you’d go home?” Jehoshaphat looked away. “An’ leave me?” demanded John Wull. “Leave _me? Me?_” “I got t’ think o’ my kids.” “An’ you’d leave me t’ _die?_” “Well,” Jehoshaphat complained, “’tis long past supper-time. You better give in.” “I won’t!” The coast was hard to distinguish from the black sky in the west. It began to snow. Snow and night, allied, would bring Jehoshaphat Rudd and old John Wull to cold death. “Mister Wull,” Jehoshaphat objected, “’tis long past supper-time, an’ I wants t’ go home.” “Go—an’ be damned!” “I’ll count ten,” Jehoshaphat threatened.