Doubtless the search for Jack Quinn would have been continued on the following day but for the unexpected arrival in Chance Along of the good Father McQueen.  The missionary’s visits were usually unexpected.  He came now from the northward, on foot and unattended.  In a haversack on his sturdy shoulders he carried food, two books of devotions and one of Irish poetry, and his vestments.  Children who were playing a game called “deer-hunting” on the barrens behind the harbor were the first to know of the priest’s approach.  They shouted the news down to the gray cabins on the slope.  A few of the men were working out among the rocks, under the skipper’s supervision; others were cobbling skiffs and bullies that lay high and dry beneath the empty stages, and the old fellows were sitting around, giving advice and sucking at rank pipes.  The harbor was at peace; and, what was still more unusual, it was free from hunger-fear.  By the skipper’s first important stroke of business his reign promised to be prosperous, even though tyrannical.  At word that Father McQueen was sighted all work was stopped.  The dories among the outer rocks were pulled to the land-wash.  The men left their tarring and caulking under the drying-stages.  Women issued from the cabins with shawls thrown hastily about their heads and shoulders.  The skipper led the way up the twisty path to the level wilderness above.  There was one man in the world whom he feared—­feared without bitterness even as he did the saints on their thrones of gold.  That man was Father McQueen.

Cap in hand, Black Dennis Nolan took the haversack from the priest and slung it on his own shoulder.

“Ye’ve walked a weary way, father,” he said.  “Ye bes mud and water to the knees, sir.”

“But a step, Denny.  Naught but a step, my son,” replied the missionary, cheerfully.  “I was in Witless Bay for two holy baptisms, a marriage an’ a wake, an’ I just took the notion to step over an’ see ye all in Chance Along. Pax vobiscum, all of ye!  My children, ye look grand an’ hearty.  How is Mother Nolan, the dear old body?  Spry as ever, ye say?  Praise the saints for that.”

The people, men, women, and children, clustered round him with beaming faces, and in return he beamed at one and all, and spoke to a dozen by name.  He leaned on the skipper’s arm.

“But it bes still early in the forenoon, father,” said Dennis.  “Where did yer reverence sleep last night then?”

“Snug as a fox in his den, my son,” replied the sturdy old man.  “When dark came on I found me a dry cave in the side of a knoll, an’ dry moss an’ sticks for a fire.”

“It bain’t right for yer reverence to sleep out these rough winter nights,” protested the skipper.  “Maybe ye’ll be gettin’ yer death one o’ these nights, sir.”

“Nay, Denny, don’t ye go worryin’ about me,” said the priest.  “I am as tough as a husky.”

He descended the path to the clustered cabins, still holding the skipper’s arm and with the populace sliding and crowding at his muddy heels.  His gray eyes were as keen as they were kindly.  He remarked several of the great iron rings on the rocks to seaward.