But the mail carrier brushed this financial consideration aside. There was the canker of gossip eating on his inquiring mind, and he blurted out the subject at once: "I didn’t just know whether you run that feller out, Tobe, or whether ’twas his fight with Ralph Endicott that sent him kitin’." "His fight with Ralph?" questioned Tobias with pursed lips. "Did they fight?" "So I’m told. Didn’t you hear about it?" asked the eager Amos. "Not as I know of." "Why, so they tell me down to Little Trillion. Over that Nicholet gal. You know, Tobias, she’s been playin’ fast and loose with them two fellers all summer." "No. I didn’t know that, neither," declared the lightkeeper, puffing more rapidly on his pipe. "Wal, now, you know, Tobe, she’s got them two fellers on her string. It come to a head, they tell me, an’ Endicott licked this Degger to a fare-ye-well, put him ashore at the Lower Trillion life saving station, and sailed away with the gal on that motor-boat of his’n. They tell me they was gone all night, nobody knows where—heh?" For Tobias had dropped his pipe and his eyes suddenly blazed. "I know all about that, Amos," he said sternly. "Ye do? I thought ye didn’t." "I know it ain’t so. Ralph went out after Lorna and that Degger in his motor-boat when they was in danger of being drowned as dead as Pharaoh’s hosts. He put Degger ashore at Lower Trillion ’cause the feller was scare’t. He brought Lorna back here less’n an hour after Degger arrived in Zeke Bassett’s car. That’s the truth on it. Who’s tellin’ this dirty story about town, anyway?" "Wal, now, Tobias, mebbe it is nothin’ but a pack o’ lies. They was a-tellin’ of it at the post-office. That Degger is stoppin’ at the Inn. He an’ a feller named Lon Burtwell. Mebbe you’ve seed him about town, off an’ on, this summer?" "Go on," said Tobias, ruefully scrutinizing the broken pipe he had picked up. "An’ they said that Degger said he’d had a row with Endicott. He said Endicott had sailed away with the gal. Intimated mebbe they’d _e_-loped. Degger said Endicott did just that with another gal once, when he was at college. There was a scandal about it." "And I can see there’s some scandal about this," Tobias rejoined reflectively. "Wal, Amos, dates is dates, and you can’t fool the clock. I met Ralph and Lorny when they come ashore, and it was just in the shanks of the evening, ’fore supper. "I don’t reckon Ralph ever laid his hand on that Degger yet; but if he hears this story I shouldn’t be surprised if there was a ruction. I knowed that Degger didn’t have no more morals than a clam worm." CHAPTER XV DECISIVE ACTION It was impossible that such a story should be wafted about the community without reaching Ralph Endicott’s ears. Lorna might never hear it, but Ralph’s association with the longshore folk was much closer than that of most of the dwellers on Clay Head.