“What’s the matter with you, young feller?  Cat got your tongue?” demanded the stranger.

“Well, of all things!” finally gasped Lawford.  “I thought you were Cap’n Abe.  But you’re not.  You must be Cap’n Amazon Silt.”

“That’s who I be,” agreed the other.

“His brother!”

“Ain’t much like Abe, eh?” and Cap’n Amazon smiled widely.

“Only your voice.  That is a little like Cap’n Abe’s.  Well, I declare!” repeated Lawford, coming deliberately up the steps.

Cap’n Amazon rose briskly and led the way into the store.  The fog was clearing with swiftness and a ray of sunlight slanted through a dusty window with sufficient strength to illumine the shelves behind the counter.

“Those boxes yonder are where Cap’n Abe keeps his fishhooks.  But isn’t he here?”

“He’s off,” Cap’n Amazon replied.  “Up anchor’d and sailed ’bout soon’s I come.  Been ready to go quite a spell, I shouldn’t wonder.  Had his chest all packed and sent it to the depot by a wagon.  Walked over himself airly to ketch the train.  These the hooks, son?”

“But where’s he gone?”

“On a v’y’ge,” replied Cap’n Amazon.  “Why shouldn’t he?  Seems he’s been lashed here, tight and fast, for c’nsider’ble of a spell.  He and this store of hisn was nigh ’bout spliced.  I don’t see how he has weathered it so long.”

“Gone away!” murmured Lawford.

Cap’n Amazon eyed him with a tilt to his head and possibly a twinkle of amusement in his eye.  “Young man, what’s your name?” he asked bluntly.  Lawford told him.  “Wal, it strikes me,” Cap’n Amazon said, “that your tops’ls air slattin’ a good deal.  You ain’t on the wind.”

“I am upset, I declare!”

“Sure you got the right hooks this time?”

“Yes.  I believe so.”

“Then if your Merry Andrew—­what is she, cat-rigged or——­”

“Sloop.”

“Then if your Merry Andrew sloop’s a-waiting for you, that’s the way out,” said Cap’n Amazon coolly, pointing with his pipestem to the door.  “Come again—­when you want to buy anything in Abe’s stock.  Good day!”

Lawford halted a moment at the door to look back at the bizarre figure behind the counter, leaning on the scarred brown plank just as Cap’n Abe so often did.  The amazing difference between the storekeeper’s well remembered appearance and that of his substitute grew more startling.

As Cap’n Amazon stood there half stooping, leaning on his hairy fists, the picture rose in Lawford Tapp’s mind of a pirate, cutlass in teeth and his sash full of pistols, swarming over the rail of a doomed ship.  The young man had it in his mind to ask a question about that wonderfully pretty girl above.  But, somehow, Cap’n Amazon did not appear to be the sort of person to whom one could put even a mildly impudent question.

The young man walked slowly down the road toward the shore where his boat was beached.  He had no idea that a pair of gray eyes watched him from that window where he had glimpsed the vision of girlish beauty only a few minutes before.