The girl entered the store ahead of the staggering expressman, but stepped aside for him to precede her, for she wished to beckon to Amiel to come out for the baskets of fish.

“Watch out where you’re putting your foot, Perry!” Cap’n Joab suddenly exclaimed.

His warning was too late.  Some youngster, eager to peel his banana, had flung its treacherous skin upon the floor.  The expressman set his clumsy boot upon it.

“Whee!  ’Ware below!” yelled Amiel Perdue.

To recover his footing Perry let go of the chest.  It fell to the floor with a mighty crash, landing upon one corner and bursting open.  During the long years it had stood in Cap’n Abe’s storeroom the wood had suffered dry rot.

“Land o’ Liberty an’ all han’s around!” bawled the irrepressible Milt Baker.  “There ain’t ho corpse in that dust, for a fac’!”

“What kind of a mess d’ye make that out to be, I want to know?” cackled Washy Gallup.

The hinges had torn away from the rotting wood so that the lid lay wide open.  Tumbled out upon the floor were several ancient garments, including a suit of quite unwearable oilskins, and with them at least a wheelbarrow load of bricks!

“Well, I vum!” drawled the expressman, at length recovering speech.  “I hope Huldy’ll be satisfied.”

But Cap’n Joab Beecher was not.  He stood up and pointed his stick at the heap of rubbish on the floor and his voice quavered as he shrilly asked: 

“Then, where’s Cap’n Abe?”

They all turned to stare again at Cap’n Amazon.  That hardy mariner seemed to be quite as self-possessed as usual.  His grim lips opened and in caustic tone he said: 

“You fellers seem to think that I’m Abe Silt’s keeper.  I ain’t.  Abe’s old enough—­and ought to be seaman enough—­to look out for Abe Silt.  What tomfoolery he packed into that chest is none o’ my consarn.  I l’arnt years ago that Moses an’ them old fellers left the chief commandment out o’ the Scriptures.  That’s ‘Mind your own business.’  Abe’s business ain’t mine.  Here, you Amiel! clear up that clutter an’ let’s have no more words about it.”

The decisive speech of the master mariner closed the lips of even Cap’n Joab.  The latter did not repeat his query about Cap’n Abe but, with a baffled expression on his weather-beaten countenance, departed with Perry Baker.

That a trap had been for Cap’n Amazon, that it had been sprung and failed to catch the master mariner, seemed quite plain to Louise.  Betty Gallup’s oft-expressed suspicions and Washy Gallup’s gossip suddenly impressed the girl.  With these vague thoughts was connected in her mind the discovery she had made that one of Cap’n Amazon’s thrilling stories was pasted into the old scrapbook.  Why she should think of that discovery just now mystified her; but it seemed somehow to dovetail into the enigma.

Cap’n Amazon lifted the flap in the counter for Louise and in his usual kindly tone said: