“Oh, nonsense, boy,” replied Capt. Rider, as he gave the tiller a sharp pull to bring the Polly up a point, “guess you was asleep and had a dream.” “No, uncle, listen; there it is again, ’tis a baby’s cry.” “Bless my skin, boy, I b’lieve yer right; my hearin’ ain’t extra good, but I do hear su’thin off thar to wind’ard. But what in the world could a baby be doin’ out thar? I don’t see no vessel nor no boat. But we won’t leave no mortal round in this hole to drown.” “Here, George,” he shouted, “you and Nick get the boat over and see if ye can find whar that distressed creeter is. And Ned, you kin go along to help. I’ll put the Polly’s sheets to wind and jog around so you won’t lose us.” The tide-ruffled waters splashed and sparkled as the oars, in the hands of the hardy fishermen, rose and fell in unison. “There, I hear it again,” exclaimed Ned from his seat at the stern of the boat; “it comes right from that rock.” The oars sent the boat straight toward the huge rock, on whose sides the tide lapped with a soft rhythmic “swish, swish,” gaining slowly, surely. Only a few feet of its slippery top remained exposed, and the water was creeping up inch by inch until soon only a swirl and a fleck of foam would mark the place of the hidden reef. There on the shelving side of the rock, with the tide lapping her tiny feet, chilled from long exposure and crying bitterly, sat a little girl. Rough but willing hands soon had the little waif safely in the boat. When they reached the side of the Polly Uncle Peter stood ready to receive the strange charge. “Well, by hooky, boys,” he exclaimed as he received from Ned’s arms the little dripping form. “How could she ’ve got on to that rock?” “There’s only one way I can ’count for it,” said George Barnes. “Some devil wanted to get rid of her, and left her thar to drown.” “Well, I’d like to catch the chap that did it; either he or I’d go overboard,” said Ben Smith. Ned gazed wonderingly into the face of the little child, who now, somewhat reassured, lay smiling in the bunk where the crew had placed her after removing the water-soaked clothing. “Well, boys,” said Capt. Peter after all that was possible had been done for the little charge, “we don’t know whar this baby girl came from, and we ain’t goin’ to try hard to find out; we ain’t very handy or well fixed for girl babies aboard the Polly, but, by hooky, we’re a nuff site more human than the critters that left that tot out dar on the rock to be killed piecemeal.” The summer winds blew gently on the Polly; homeward she sped. One bright morning the anchor dropped and the codder was home again in the smooth waters of Provincetown Harbor. Little Ruth (so the crew of the Polly had named her) had fared well on the voyage, and when the boat had been rowed ashore and the fisher wives and maidens had come down to welcome home their loved ones, great was their astonishment at what had come home with the Polly’s fishermen.