“Has, hey?”

“There ain’t no Jack the Giant-Killers in these parts,” sighed Old Man Jordan, hooking his bucket upon his arm and shambling away.

For several days Cap’n Sproul was busy about the gable end of the bridge during his spare moments and hours, climbing up and down the ladder, and handling a rope and certain pulleys with sailor dexterity.  All the time his grim jaw-muscles ridged his cheeks.  When he had finished he had a rope running through pulleys from the big gate up over the gable of the bridge and to the porch of the toll-house.

“There,” he muttered, with great satisfaction, “that’s the first bear-trap I ever set, and it ain’t no extra sort of job, but I reckon when old grizzly goes ag’inst it he’ll cal’late that this ’ere is a toll-bridge.”

Then came days of anxious waiting.  Sometimes a teamster’s shouts to his horses up around the willows sent the Cap’n hobbling to the end of the rope.  An unusual rattling in the bridge put him at his post with his teeth set and his eyes gleaming.

II

One day a mild and placid little woman in dove-gray came walking from the bridge and handed over her penny.  She eyed the skipper with interest, and cocked her head with the pert demureness of a sparrow while she studied the parrots who were waddling about their cages.

“I never heard a parrot talk, sir,” she said.  “I hear that yours talk.  I should dearly love to hear them.”

“Their language is mostly deep-water flavor,” said the Cap’n, curtly, “and ’tain’t flavored edsackly like vanilla ice-cream.  There’s more of the peppersass tang to it than ladies us’ly enjoys.”

The little woman gave a chirrup at the birds, and, to the skipper’s utter astonishment, both Port and Starboard chirruped back sociably.  Port then remarked:  “Pretty Polly!” Starboard chirruped a few cheery bars from “A Sailor’s Wife a Sailor’s Star Should Be.”  Then both parrots rapped their beaks genially against the bars of the cages and beamed on the lady with their little button eyes.

“Well, I swow!” ejaculated the Cap’n, rubbing his knurly forefinger under his nose, and glancing first at the parrots and then at the lady.  “If that ain’t as much of an astonisher as when the scuttle-butt danced a jig on the dog-vane!  Them two us’ly cusses strangers, no matter what age or sect.  They was learnt to do it.”  He gazed doubtfully at the birds, as though they might possibly be deteriorating in the effeminacies of shore life.

“I always was a great hand with pets of all kinds,” said the lady, modestly.  “Animals seem to take to me sort of naturally.  I hear you have long followed the sea, Cap’n Sproul—­I believe that’s the name, Cap’n Sproul?”

“Sproul it is, ma’am—­Aaron for fore-riggin’.  Them as said I follered the sea was nearer than shore-folks us’ly be.  Took my dunnage aboard at fourteen, master at twenty-four, keel-hauled by rheumatiz at fifty-six—­wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that.  I ain’t stuck on a penny-flippin’ job of this sort.”