“Perhaps you are right.  I do not know much about the New England coast,” she confessed.  “And that—­where the spray dashes up so high, even on this calm morning?”

“Gull Rocks.  The danger spot of all danger spots along the outer line of the Cape.  In rough weather all one can see out there is a cauldron of foam.”

Before she could express herself again the purr of a swiftly moving motor car attracted her attention, and she turned to see a low gray roadster coming toward them from the north.  The Shell Road, before reaching the shore, swerved northward and ran along the bluffs on which the bungalows and summer cottages were built.  These dwellings faced the smooth white road, the sea being behind them.

As Louise looked the car slowed down and stopped, the engine still throbbing.  A girl was at the wheel.  She was perhaps fifteen, without a hat and with two plaits of yellow hair lying over her slim shoulders.

“Hey, Ford!” she shouted to the young man, “haven’t you been up to Cap’n Abe’s yet?  Daddy’s down at the dock now and he’s in a tearing hurry.”

She gazed upon Lou Grayling frankly but made no sign of greeting.  She did not wait, indeed, for a reply from the young man but threw in the clutch and the car shot away.

“I’ve got to go up to the store,” he said.  “L’Enfant Terrible is evidently going to Paulmouth to meet the early train.  Must be somebody coming.”

Louise looked at him quickly, her expression one of perplexity.  She supposed this child in the car was the daughter of Lawford’s employer.  But whoever before heard a fisherman speak just as he did?  Had Cap’n Abe been at home she certainly would have tapped that fount of local knowledge for information regarding Lawford.  He did not look so much the fisherman type without his jersey and high boots.

“How do you like the old fellow up at the store?” Lawford asked, as they strolled along together.  “Isn’t he a curious old bird?”

“You mean my Uncle Amazon?”

“Goodness!  He is your uncle, too, isn’t he?” and a flush of embarrassment came into his bronzed cheek.  “I had forgotten he was Cap’n Abe’s brother.  He is so different!”

“Isn’t he?” responded Louise demurely.  “He doesn’t look anything like Uncle Abram, at least.”

“I should say not!” ejaculated Lawford.  “Do you know, he’s an awfully—­er—­romantic looking old fellow.  Looks just as though he had stepped out of an old print”

“The frontispiece of a book about buccaneers, for instance?” she suggested gleefully.

“Well,” and he smiled down upon her from his superior height, “I wasn’t sure you would see it that way.”

“Do you know,” she told him, still laughing, “that Betty Gallup calls him nothing but ‘that old pirate.’  She has taken a decided dislike to him and I have to keep smoothing her ruffled feathers.  And, really, Cap’n Amazon is the nicest man.”