CHAPTER

      I. A choice
     II.  Cap’n Abe
    III.  In cap’n Abe’s living-room
     IV.  The shadow of coming events
      V. What happened in the night
     VI.  Boarded by pirates
    VII.  Under Fike
   VIII.  Something about salt water taffy
     IX.  Suspicion hovers
      X. What Louise thinks
     XI.  The leading man
    XII.  The descent of aunt Euphemia
   XIII.  Washy Gallup’s curiosity
    XIV.  A choice of CHAPERONS
     XV.  The unexpected
    XVI.  A tragedy of errors
   XVII.  The Odds against him
  XVIII.  Something Breaks
    XIX.  Much ado
     XX.  The sun worshipers
    XXI.  Discoveries
   XXII.  Shocking news
  XXIII.  Between the fires
   XXIV.  Gray days
    XXV.  Aunt Euphemia makes A point
   XXVI.  At last
  XXVII.  Sargasso
 XXVIII.  Storm clouds threaten
   XXIX.  The scar
    XXX.  When the strong tides lift
   XXXI.  An anchor to the soul
  XXXII.  On the Roll of Honor

CHAPTER I

A CHOICE

“Of course, my dear, there is nobody but your Aunt Euphemia for you to go to!”

“Oh, daddy-professor!  Nobody?  Can we rake or scrape up no other relative on either side of the family who will take in poor little me for the summer?  You will be home in the fall, of course.”

“That is the supposition,” Professor Grayling replied, his lips pursed reflectively.  “No.  Dear me! there seems nobody.”

“But Aunt Euphemia!”

“I know, Lou, I know.  She expects you, however.  She writes——­”

“Yes.  She has it all planned,” sighed Louise Grayling dejectedly.  “Every move at home or abroad Aunt Euphemia has mapped out for me.  When I am with her I am a mere automaton—­only unlike a real marionette I can feel when she pulls the strings!”

The professor shook his head.  “There’s—­there’s only your poor mother’s half-brother down on the Cape.”

“What half-brother?” demanded Louise with a quick smile that matched the professor’s quizzical one.

“Why——­Well, your mother, Lou, had an older half-brother, a Mr. Silt.  He keeps a store at Cardhaven.  You know, I met your mother down that way when I was hunting seaweed for the Smithsonian Institution.  Your grandmother was a Bellows and her folks lived on the Cape, too.  Her family has died out and your grandfather was dead before I married your mother.  The half-brother, this Mr. Silt—­Captain Abram Silt—­is the only individual of that branch of the family left alive, I believe.”

“Goodness!” gasped the girl.  “What a family tree!”

Again the professor smiled whimsically.  “Only a few of the branches.  But they all reach back to the first navigators of the world.”