He had business yet, had Wesley Marrs. There was a tug and a barge and another big seiner in his course. He clipped the tug, scraped the barge, and set the seiner's boat a-dancing, and two lengths more he put down the wheel and threw her gracefully into the wind. Down came jib, down came jumbo, over splashed the anchor. She ran forward a little, rattled back a link or two, steadied herself, and there she was. Her big mainsail was yet shaking in the wind, her gaff-topsail yet fluttering aloft, but she herself, the Lucy Foster of Gloucester, was at your service. "And what do you think of her, people?" might just as well have been shot off her deck through a megaphone, for that was what her bearing and the unnatural smartness of her crew plainly were saying. We all drew breath again. Clancy unbent from the rail and shook his head in high approval. He took off his sou'wester, slatted it over the after-bitt to clear the brim of water, and spoke his mind. "You'll see nothing cleaner than that in this harbor to-day, fellows, and you'll see some pretty fair work at that. That fellow--he's an able seaman." "Yes, sir--an able seaman," said the skipper also. And Clancy and the skipper were something in the line of able seamen themselves. XIII WESLEY MARRS BRINGS A MESSAGE Generally a day in harbor is a day of loafing for the crew of a seiner; but it was not so altogether with us that day. Within two hours of the time that Wesley Marrs came in to the Breakwater in such slashing style the skipper had us into the seine-boat and on the way to the Lucy Foster. By his orders we took along ten empty mackerel barrels. "We'll go over to the beach first and fill these barrels up with sand." We all knew what the sand was for--the Johnnie Duncan was going to be put in trim to do her best sailing. Coming down the coast the skipper and Clancy decided that she was down by the stern a trifle. So we attended to the sand, and on the way back hauled our second seine out of the hold of the Lucy Foster, and piled it into the seine-boat. With the last of the twine into the seine-boat and just as we were about to push off from the Lucy, Wesley Marrs put a foot on the rail of his vessel and spoke to Maurice. "And when I was taking the last of that aboard in the dock in Gloucester, you wouldn't believe who it was stepped onto the cap-log and looking down on the deck of the Lucy says, 'And you'll take good care of that seine for Captain Blake, won't you, Captain Marrs?' Could you guess now, Maurice?" "No," said Maurice. "No, I'll bet you can't. It isn't often she comes down the dock. Miss Foster no less. 'And what makes you think I won't?' I asks her. 'Oh, of course I know you will,' she says, 'and deliver it to him in good order, too.' 'I'll try,' I says, as though it was a desp'rate job I had on hand--to put a seine in the hold and turn it over to another vessel when I met her. 'But what makes you worry about this partic'lar seine, Miss Foster?' I asks."