It was not yet sunrise, but as Tunis walked down through one of those cuts in the edge of the headland, following a well-defined cart track, he saw the rose-glow of the sun’s round face staining the mist on the eastern horizon.

He came down upon the hard sand of the beach and walked toward a tiny cove into which the mud flats extended and on which he knew the clams were plentiful and ripe.  Glistening pools of black water, showing where other diggers had raided the flat, were interspersed with trembling patches of black sand.  When Tunis began to cross the flat the sand before his boots became alive with tiny, shooting geysers of clean water.  He set to work.

And while he was thus engaged he heard suddenly a shrill outcry and a most mysterious sound up in one of the gullies toward the summit of Wreckers’ Head.  Here thousands of tons of sand had run out of the cut in the steep bank and formed a dykelike way to the beach itself.  More and more sand was slipping down this way all the time.  A strong man could scarcely make his way up the incline, the sand was so unstable.

Tunis stood and stared up the slope.  There shot into view, carried rapidly upon the forefront of the avalanche, a white-haired old man who waved a stick in one hand and a cocked pistol in the other, while from his mouth came shrill cries of excitement, if not of alarm.

But it was what followed Cap’n Ira Ball—­whom Tunis immediately recognized—­that caused the captain of the Seamew such utter surprise.  Sitting on her rump, pawing at the sliding sand with her front hoofs, and whistling her terror and amazement, the Queen of Sheba appeared flying after the harassed old man.

It was a scene to surprise more than to entertain the beholder.  The avalanche promised disaster to the participants in it.  Tons upon tons of sand, undulating and sinuous in appearance, traveled faster and yet faster behind the old gray mare and the gray old sea captain.  The smoke of the slide hid all that lay behind them, and these wreaths of sand dust threatened a higher wave that might, at any moment, entirely overwhelm both the equine and the human victim of the catastrophe.

Tunis dropped his clam hoe and started for the dyke of sand on the crest of which the old man and the old mare were sliding like naughty children down a woodshed roof.

“Hey, Tunis!  Tunis!” bawled the captain.  “Take her off’n me!  She’ll be afoul my hawser in another second, I do believe.”

It was evident that he spoke of the Queen of Sheba, but Tunis could not see how the mare was intentionally threatening Cap’n Ira’s peace of mind or safety of body.  She was, however, “close aboard” Cap’n Ira as he tobogganed down the sandy way.

“Stern all!” shouted the old man, throwing another startled, backward glance at the Queen of Sheba.  “Drat the derned old critter!  Don’t she know nothin’ at all?  Tunis!  Do you see what’s goin’ to happen?”