“It sounds crazy enough, that's a fact; but it was true. Woodchuck Island is a little mite of a sand heap off in the bay, two mile from shore and ten from the nighest town. I'd bought it and put up a shanty for a gunnin' shack; took city gunners down there, once in a while, the fall before. That summer I'd leased it to a friend of mine, name of Darius Baker, who used it while he was lobsterin'. The gale had driven us straight in from sea, 'way past Sandy P'int and on to the island. 'Twas like hittin' a nail head in a board fence, but we'd done it. Shows what Providence can do when it sets out. “I explained some of this to Williams as we waded through the sand to the shanty. “'But is this Baker chap here now?' he asks. “'I'm afraid not,' says I. 'The lobster season's about over, and he was goin' South on a yacht this week. Still, he wa'n't to go till Saturday and perhaps--' “But the shanty was empty when we got there. I fumbled around in the tin matchbox and lit the kerosene lamp in the bracket on the wall. Then I turned to Williams. “'Well,' says I, 'we're lucky for once in--' “Then I stopped. When he went overboard the water had washed off his hat. Likewise it had washed off his long black hair--which was a wig--and his head was all round and shiny and bald, like a gull's egg out in a rain storm.” “I knew he wore a wig,” interrupted Phinney. “Of course you do. Everybody does now. But he wa'n't such a prophet in Israel then as he's come to be since, and folks wa'n't acquainted with his personal beauties. “'What are you starin' at?' he asks. “I fetched a long breath. 'Nothin',' says I. 'Nothin'.' “But for the rest of that next ha'f hour I went around in a kind of daze, as if MY wig had gone and part of my head with it. When a feller has been doin' a puzzle it kind of satisfies him to find out the answer. And I'd done my puzzle. “I knew where I'd met Mr. Williams afore.” “You did?” cried Simeon. “Um-hm. Wait a while. Well, Fatty went to bed, in one of the hay bunks, pretty soon after that. He stripped to his underclothes and turned in under the patchwork comforters. He was too beat out to want any supper, even if there'd been any in sight. I built a fire in the rusty cook stove and dried his duds and mine. Then I set down in the busted chair and begun to think. After a spell I got up and took account of stock, as you might say, of the eatables in the shanty. Darius had carted off his own grub and what there was on hand was mine, left over from the gunnin' season--a hunk of salt pork in the pickle tub, some corn meal in a tin pail, some musty white flour in another pail, a little coffee, a little sugar and salt, and a can of condensed milk. I took these things out of the locker they was in, looked 'em over, put 'em back again and sprung the padlock. Then I put the key into my pocket and went back to my chair to do some more thinkin'.