“So this bes how he come to Chance Along—­an’ not man enough to moor his boat safe!” exclaimed the skipper.

The bully was as empty as on the day it had been built, save for one oar lying across the thwarts.  Not even a spar and sail were aboard her.  The man must be an absolute fool to set out along a dangerous coast, in a bad time of year, single-handed and without grub or gear, reflected the skipper.  The thought that such a bungler as this stranger should be preferred to himself, intensified his pangs of humiliation.  No girl who understood such things—­no girl of that coast—­would treat him so, he reflected, bitterly.  He pulled the dripping painter aboard the skiff, made it fast around a thwart and towed the bully ashore.

Mary Kavanagh had been astir as early as the skipper himself.  She had gone first to the store.  Peering through a window, she had made out the stranger’s form on the floor, bulkily blanketed.  From the store, she hastened to the skipper’s house, saw his footprints pointing toward the land-wash, and stood with her hand on the latch until a skiff slid out into her line of vision from behind the drying-stages.  She knew that the skipper was on his way to investigate the derelict bully.  She opened the door then, entered quietly and went to Mother Nolan’s room.  The old woman was sitting up in bed with her night-cap a-tilt over one ear.

“Saints alive, Mary, what mischief bes afoot now?” asked Mother Nolan.

Mary drew close to the bed-side and leaned over to her confederate.

“The captain bes safe in the store, all rolled up in blankets,” she whispered, “an’—­an’ I larned something last night that means as how we kin get ’em both away before long, wid luck.  An’ I played a trick on the skipper—­so don’t ye bes worryin’ when he tells ye as how he’s found the captain’s boat.  Give the word to the lass to keep her heart up.  Sure, we’ll be gettin’ the two o’ them safe out o’ the harbor yet.”

“An’ where bes Denny now?  How’d ye get into the house?” asked the old woman.

“He bes out in a skiff this very minute, a-lookin’ at the captain’s boat where it bes driftin’ ‘round the harbor.  Sure, an’ that bes just where I wants him.  An’ now I’ll be goin’, Mother Nolan dear, for I bain’t wishin’ Denny to catch me here a-whisperin’ t’ye so early in the mornin’ or maybe he’d get the idea into his head as how us two women bain’t such harmless fools as what he’s always bin takin’ us for.”

“Ye bes a fine girl, Mary Kavanagh,” returned Mother Nolan, “an’ I trusts ye to clear this harbor o’ trouble.  I’ll be tellin’ the good word to the poor lass inside this very minute.  Her heart bain’t all diamonds an’ pride, after all, as she let us know last night, poor dear.”

Mary left them, and a minute later met the skipper on his way up from the land-wash.

“I’s found the boat the stranger come in,” said the skipper.

“Sure, an’ so ye would, Denny, if it was to be found,” replied Mary.