“Last year or two?” asked the Swede, quickening his pace to keep up.  Tod’s steel springs always kept their original temper while the captain’s orders were being executed and never lost their buoyancy until these orders were entirely carried out.

“Yes,” replied Tod.

“Been a-minin’; runnin’ the ore derricks and the shaft h’isters.  What you been doin’?” And the man glanced at Tod from under his cap.

“Fishin’.  See them poles out there?  You kin just git sight o’ them in the smoke.  Them’s my father’s.  He’s out there now, I guess, if he ain’t come in.”

“You live ’round here?” The man’s legs were shorter than Tod’s, and he was taking two steps to Tod’s one.

“Yes, you passed the House o’ Refuge, didn’t ye, comin’ up?  I was watchin’ ye.  Well, you saw that cabin with the fence ’round it?”

“Yes; the woman told me where I’d find the cap’n.  You know her, I s’pose?” asked the Swede.

“Yes, she’s my mother, and that’s my home.  I was born there.”  Tod’s words were addressed to the perspective of the beach and to the way the haze blurred the horizon; surfmen rarely see anything else when walking on the beach, whether on or off duty.

“You know everybody ’round here, don’t you?” remarked the Swede in a casual tone.  The same quick, inquiring glance shot out of the man’s eyes.

“Yes, guess so,” answered Tod with another kick.  Here the remains of an old straw hat shared the fate of the can.

“You ever heard tell of a woman named Lucy Cobden, lives ’round here somewheres?”

Tod came to a halt as suddenly as if he had run into a derelict.

“I don’t know no woman,” he answered slowly, accentuating the last word.  “I know a lady named Miss Jane Cobden.  Why?” and he scrutinized the man’s face.

“One I mean’s got a child—­big now—­must be fifteen or twenty years old—­girl, ain’t it?”

“No, it’s a boy.  He’s one of the crew here; his name’s Archie Cobden.  Me and him’s been brothers since we was babies.  What do you know about him?” Tod had resumed his walk, but at a slower pace.

“Nothin’; that’s why I ask.”  The man had also become interested in the flotsam of the beach, and had stopped to pick up a dam-shell which he shied into the surf.  Then he added slowly, and as if not to make a point of the inquiry, “Is she alive?”

“Yes.  Here this week.  Lives up in Warehold in that big house with the brick gate-posts.”

The man walked on for some time in silence and then asked: 

“You’re sure the child is livin’ and that the mother’s name is Jane?”

“Sure?  Don’t I tell ye Cobden’s in the crew and Miss Jane was here this week!  He’s up the beach on patrol or you’d ‘a’ seen him when you fust struck the Station.”

The stranger quickened his steps.  The information seemed to have put new life into him again.

“Did you ever hear of a man named Bart Holt,” he asked, “who used to be ’round here?” Neither man was looking at the other as they talked.  The conversation was merely to pass the time of day.