"She vowed she'd git rid of them shares and give Crosby a piece of her mind to boot. But I told her to hang on to 'em, that it's an ill wind that blows nobody good, and she sorter calmed down. But I left her nigh cryin'." A stalwart fellow jumped aboard from the wharf. "Well, nigh supper time. Guess I'll be goin'," said Captain Ed, stepping on the rail and hoisting himself on to Robbins Wharf. "Looks like you're competin' against an awful stack of capital, Bert. But keep up your courage if you do fight it out. What you told the widder 'bout that ill wind might apply to you, too." Whistling, Captain Ed walked down the wharf. [Illustration] "The _Mary Chilton's_ all ready, Cap'n," spoke the big newcomer in a deep voice. He pointed over his shoulder at the old schooner, unused and falling to pieces on the other side of Robbins Wharf. "Everything's ready, sir," he repeated while Captain Bert hesitated before answering. "All right, Bill." Bill Hyde's speech and appearance--bulldog jaw, swarthy face and curly black hair sticking out from a shabby blue yachting cap--branded him a Yankee, but foreign to the Cape. Captain Bert had hired him two weeks ago at a Boston agency, after a long list of drunkards, thieves, and even one murderer who had sailed with him as his sole companion, first on the old _Mary Chilton_, and subsequently on the _Bessie Barker_. The captain liked Bill. He was frank, decisive, still exuberant with youth, and an all-round good shipmate. And the customer Bill had found him in Gloucester for the decrepit _Mary Chilton_---- "We'll clear for Gloucester in the _Mary Chilton_ right away," said the captain, "and come back on the mornin' train so's we can take the _Bessie_ to Boston tomorrow afternoon. You're sure, Bill, this customer you've got me ain't goin' to be disappointed in his bargain?" "Disappointed? 'Course not. He isn't buying a yacht. Old hulks are what he always buys for hauling stone. He'll have her hull fixed up and she'll do well enough for a barge." Across the harbor over the Herringbone a sandy strip of land running parallel to the Howesport waterfront and sheltering the outer harbor, the sun had set, only the rim of its globe now peering above the horizon. The decaying old fish piers on both sides of Robbins Wharf loomed hoary, deserted and sinister, ghosts of palmier days. Not a sound broke the silence save the squawk of a passing gull and the wash of the sea on the sides of the schooner. Captain Blackmer still stood with a Napoleonic pose, looking out toward the vanishing sun. "If 'twa'n't for the Widder Barnes," he remarked when its last radiance had faded and night shrouded the after-glow, "I'd be tempted to sail out and scuttle that whole Crosby fleet."