Now this Auvergne was twenty-five miles this side of any port of entry, and my first landing in Newfoundland, according to law, had to be at a port of entry. And so I told this chap that, and how I was liable to a heavy fine, and so on. Yes, he discerned much truth in what I said, but consider that poor fisherman who could have his good rum merely for the landing--no other cost, none whatever--he, a friend of Mr. Miller, was sending it as a gift for the holiday Christmas time. And that rum--consider the piteously cold nights hauling the nets when a drink of good rum was so soothing, so grateful, so inspiring. And a little favor like that--the Colonial Government would not be--truly not--and if I did not take the rum that poor fisherman of Auvergne would have none in its stead. He could not afford it, the duty was so high--an impossible duty, as no doubt I knew. I did know, and also I remembered many a drink of Saint Pierre rum I'd had on a cold night in Newfoundland and no duty paid on it, and many a cold night hauling herring when I didn't have it, but wished I had, and would've gone a long ways to get it, duty or no duty. And then I remembered how Miller had been pretty decent to me that day--the little brooch he'd bought for the baby I could even then feel in my vest pocket--and I said all right, and when half an hour later a dory slipped up to the side of the _Aurora_ and a keg was handed over the rail I didn't ask any questions, but took and stowed it under the cabin run. Next morning we sailed, and, after a four hours' easy run, made Auvergne, a little port in Placentia Bay, tucked away between two headlands--one easterly, one westerly. Coming from Saint Pierre, it was, of course, the westward one we rounded. According to directions, I ground out two long and two short woofs on the fog-horn, at which a man pops from behind a big rock and waves a handkerchief three times. Well, that was according to directions, too, and I drops a dory over the side with Sam Leary and Archie Gillis and the keg in it, and tells them to row over to the beach, ask the name of the lad that jumped from behind the rock, and if it was the same as on the tag to leave the keg with him. It was about a mile to the bit of beach, and the dory was almost there, when from behind the easterly headland comes the revenue-cutter. "That looks bad," I says, "but we'll say we've come for fresh water, that our tanks were leakin', and that we had to have fresh water to cook dinner, and Sam and Archie in the dory--'specially Sam--they'll have wit enough to empty the keg over the side and go on up as if they was really lookin' for water."