The skipper snorted in disgust.  “Make it?” he repeated.  “If the Lady May can’t make fourteen mile in two hours—­let alone two’n a ha’f—­then I don’t know her.  She’s one of them boats you read about, she is.”

The Cape makes a wide bend between Denboro and Trumet.  The distance between these towns is twenty long, curved miles over the road; by water it is reduced to a straight fourteen.  And midway between the two, at the center of the curve, is East Harniss.

The Lady May coughed briskly on.  There was no sea, and she sent long, widening ripples from each side of her bow.  Bartlett, leaning over the rail, gazed impatiently ahead.  Issy, sprawled on the bench by the wheel, was muttering to himself.  Occasionally he glanced toward the east.  The gray fog bank was now half way to the zenith and approaching rapidly.  The eastern shore had disappeared.

“Is!  Hi, Is!  What are you doing?  Don’t kill him before my eyes.”

Issy came out of his trance with a start.

“What—­what’s that?” he asked.  His passenger was grinning broadly.

“What?  Kill who?”

“Why, the big chief, or whoever you had under your knee just then.  You’ve been rolling your eyes and punching air with your fist for the last five minutes.  I was getting scared.  You’re an unmerciful sinner when you get started, ain’t you, Is?  Who was the victim that time?  ’Man Afraid of Hot Water’? or who?”

The skipper scowled.  He shoved the fist into his pocket.

“Naw,” he growled. “’Twa’n’t.”

“So?  Not an Indian?  Then it must have been a white man.  Some fellow after your girl, perhaps.  Hey?”

The disconcerted Issy was speechless.  His companion’s chance shot had scored a bull’s-eye.  Sam whooped.

“That’s it!” he crowed.  “Sure thing!  Give it to him, Is!  Don’t spare him.”

Mr. McKay chokingly admitted that he “wa’n’t goin’ to.”

“Ho, ho!  That’s the stuff!  But who’s she, Is?  When are you going to marry her?”

Issy grunted spitefully.  “You ain’t married yourself—­not yit,” he observed, with concealed sarcasm.

The unsuspecting Bartlett laughed in triumph.  “No,” he said.  “I’m not, that’s a fact; but maybe I’m going to be some of these days.  It looked pretty dubious for a while, but now it’s all right.”

“’Tis, hey?  You’re sure about that, be you?”

“Guess I am.  Great Scott! what’s that?  Fog?”

A damp breath blew across the boat.  The clouds covered the sky overhead and the bay to port.  The fog was pouring like smoke across the water.

“Fog, by thunder!” exclaimed Bartlett.

Issy smiled.  “Hum!  Yes, ’tis fog, ain’t it?” he observed.

“But what’ll we do?  It’ll be here in a minute, won’t it?”

“Shouldn’t be a mite surprised.  Looks ’s if twas here now.”

The fog came on.  It reached the Lady May, passed over her, and shut her within gray, wet walls.  It was impossible to see a length from her side.  Sam swore emphatically.  The skipper was provokingly calm.  He stepped to the engine, bent over it, and then returned to the wheel.