Several men sauntered after Mason and joined the group gathered at the door. One entered, and Forrest turned from his desk to take the day’s tally from him. Presently Hop Sing slipped through the idle and jeering crowd to collect an allowance of groceries. Mason laid his packages down and waited, leaning on the railing. His glance moved from the cook to the sawyer, a heavy, burly fellow, who stood in the entrance. As the Chinaman passed out this man turned with a sudden thrust of his powerful shoulder and Hop Sing plunged headlong on to the dock. There was a round of applause while he floundered in a broken crock of molasses and a burst bag of buckwheat, and the sawyer moved back with a gruff laugh. At the same instant something was thrown behind him, and he, too, fell, sprawling on the floor. The cry of derision was transferred to him, and Mason, having recovered his equilibrium, stooped and gravely felt of his wooden leg. "When a man’s er peg like this," he said aggressively, forestalling the sawyer’s anger, "he aren’t to be walked over. I’ve known ’um to crack." And the crowd cheered, for there was a story current at the mills that Mason had once, in an emergency, unstrapped this leg and used it for a weapon; not only to the discomfiture of his antagonist, but to the serious damage of the instrument, both having been laid up, afterwards, for extensive repairs. The amusement shone for a moment in Forrest’s eyes, but his face was tired and worn; the line between his brows had grown habitual. It deepened when the old sailor repeated Kingsley’s message. He took a small packet of mail which the watchman had brought with the bundles, and hastily cut the string. "Here, Mason," he said, "take these letters over to Mrs. Kingsley. "Ay sir." The answer was hearty, but Forrest caught the consternation in the tone. He knew that it took less courage for this crippled sailor to brave the sawyer than face a woman; and he understood, when Mason stopped at the corner outside to light his pipe, it was a subterfuge to gain time. The Captain’s house, like the cabins, stood in an enclosure filled with slabs and sawdust and covered with rough planking. The board walk, which led from the store to the cookhouse and mills, branched to this building, and, raised on higher piling, extended on around the headland to an old abandoned hotel. It was there, going slowly with her toddling baby in the direction of the ruin, that Mason discovered Mrs. Kingsley as he crossed up from the store.