"Cat's foot!" ejaculated Tunis cheerfully. "The _Marlin B._ was sold for a pleasure yacht and taken half around the world. A Chilean guano millionaire bought her the year after the Sutro Brothers took her off the Banks." "Ye-as. That's what Sutro Brothers says," and the old man wagged his head doubtfully. "But there's just as much difference in ships, as there is in men. Ain't never been two men just per_zact_-ly alike. No two craft ever sailed or steered same as same, Captain Tunis. I steered the _Martin B._ out o' Salem on her second trip, without knowing what she'd been through, you can believe, on her first." "Well, well!" Tunis broke in sharply. "Just keep your mind on what you are doing now, Horry. You're supposed to be steering the _Seamew_ into Big Wreck Cove. Don't undertake to shave a piece off the Lighthouse Point reef." The steersman did not answer. From long experience with these Lathams, Horace Newbegin knew just how much interference or advice they would stand. "And, by gum, that ain't much!" he growled to himself. He took the beautifully sailing schooner in through the channel in a masterly manner. He knew that more ancient skippers than Cap'n Ira Ball, up there on Wreckers' Head, would be watching the _Seamew_ make the cove, and old Horry Newbegin wanted them to say it was well done. Half an hour later the anchor was dropped fifty yards off Portygee Town. Captain Tunis ordered the gig lowered to take him ashore and, after giving the mate some instructions regarding stowage and the men's shore leave, he was rowed over to Luiz Wharf. 'Rion Latham, a red-headed, pimply faced young man, sidled up to Horace Newbegin. "Well, what do you think of the hoodoo ship, Horrors?" he hoarsely whispered. Newbegin stared at him unwaveringly, and the red-haired one repeated the question. The old salt finally batted one eye, slowly and impressively. "D'you know what answer the little boy got that asked the quahog the time o' day?" he drawled. "Not a word. Not a derned word, 'Rion." Landing at the fish wharf, Tunis Latham walked up the straggling street of the district inhabited for the most part by smiling brown men and women. Fayal and Cape Cod are strangely analogous, especially upon a summer's day. The houses he passed had one room; they were little more than shacks. But there were gay colors everywhere in the dress of both men and women. It was believed that these Portygee fishermen would have their seines dyed red and yellow if the fish would swim into them. A young woman sitting upon a doorstep, nursing a little, bald, brown-headed baby, dropped a gay handkerchief over her bared bosom but nodded and smiled at the captain of the _Seamew_ with right good fellowship. He knew all these people, and most of them, the young women at least, admired Tunis; but he was too self-centered and busied with his own thoughts and affairs to comprehend this.