Caleb West

I.

THE CAPE ANN SLOOP.

WHEN Sanford signed the contract for the building of Shark Ledge Light off Keyport Harbor, he found himself confronted with a problem.

The Light was to be erected on a mass of rough stone which had been placed over a sunken ledge to form an artificial island. This was situated eight miles from land, and breasted a tide running six miles an hour. The government plans provided that this island should be protected not only from sea action, but from the thrust of floating ice as well. This was to be done by paving the under-water slopes of the artificial island with huge granite blocks forming an enrockment. The engineerin-chief of the Lighthouse Board at Washington had expressed grave doubts as to the practicability of the working plans which Sanford had submitted, questioning whether these protecting enrockment blocks, weighing twelve tons each, could be swung overboard from the deck of a vessel while moored in a six-mile current. As, however, the selection of the methods to be employed lay with the contracting engineer, and not with the Board, Sanford’s working plans had been accepted, and the responsibility for their success rested with him.

So soon, therefore, as the notification to begin work had come from Washington, Sanford had telegraphed to Captain Joe Bell, his foreman of construction, at Keyport, to secure a sloop at once, with hoisting-engine and boiler of sufficient power to handle the heavy stones, and to report to him at his apartments in New York. The sloop was to be of so light a draught that she could work in the rolling surf on the shoal of the Ledge, and yet be stanch enough to sustain the strain of a derrick and boom rigged to her mast. If such a sloop could be found, Sanford’s problem would solve itself ; the rest would depend on the pluck and grit of his men.

Sanford received Captain Joe in his working office, separated by a small vestibule from his bachelor apartments.

“ Are you sure she ’ll handle the stones ? ” were the first words that Sanford in his eagerness addressed to the captain. There were no formalities between these men ; they knew each other too well. “Nothing but a ten-horse engine will lift them from the dock. What’s the sloop’s beam ? ”

“Thirty foot over all, an’ she ’s stiff’s a church,” answered Captain Joe, tugging at his stubby chin-beard with his thole-pin fingers. “I see her cap’n ’fore I come down yesterday. Looks’s ef lie hed th’ right stuff in him. Says he ain’t afeard o’ th’ Ledge, an’ don’t mind layin’ her broadside on, even ef she does git a leetle mite scraped.’

“ How’s her boiler ? ”

“ I ain’t looked her b’iler over yit, but her cylinders is big enough. If her steam gives out, I ’ll put one of our own aboard. She ’ll do, sir. Don’t worry a mite ; we ’ll spank that baby when we git to’t,” — his leathery, weather-tanned face cracking into smiles as he spoke.

Sanford laughed. He found his anxieties disappearing before the cheerful courage of this man, whose judgment of men never failed him, and whose knowledge of sea-things made him invaluable.

“I’m glad you like her skipper,” he said, taking from a pigeonhole in his perfectly appointed desk, as he spoke, the charter-party of the sloop. “ I see his name is Brandt, and the sloop’s name is the Screamer. The charter-party. I think, ought to contain some allusion to the coast-chart, in case of any protest Brandt may make afterwards about the shoaliness of the water. Better have him put his initials on the chart,” he added, with the instinctive habit of caution which always distinguished his business methods. “ Do you think the shoals will scare him ? ” he continued, as he crossed the room to a row of shelves filled with mechanical drawings, in search of a round tin case holding the various charts of Long Island Sound.

Captain Joe moved back the pile of books from the middle of the table with the same consideration he would have shown to so many bricks ; corked a bottle of liquid ink for safety ; flattened with his big hands the chart which Sanford had unrolled, weighted the four corners with a T square and some color-pans, and then, bending his massive head, began studying its details with all the easy confidence of a first officer on a Cunarder. He had not yet answered Sanford’s question.

As the light from the window fell across his head, it brought into stronger relief the few gray hairs which silvered the short brown curls crisped about his neck and temples. These hairs marked the only change seen in him since the memorable winter’s day, when off Hoboken he had saved the lives of the passengers on the sinking ferry-boat by calking with his own body the gash left in her side by a colliding tug. He was the same broad-as-he-was-long old sea-dog; tough, sturdy, tender-eyed, and fearless ; his teeth were as white, his mouth was as firm, his jaw as strong and determined. It was only around his temples and neck that time had touched him.

The captain placed his horn - tipped finger on a dot marked “ Shark’s Ledge Spindle,” obliterating in the act some forty miles of sea-space ; repeated to himself in a low voice, “ Six fathoms — four — one and a half — hum, ’t ain’t nothin’; that Cape Ann sloop can do it ; ” and then suddenly remembering Sanford’s question, he answered, with quick lifting of his head and with a cheery laugh, “ Scare him? Wait till ye see him, sir.”

When the coast-chart had been rolled and replaced in the tin case, to be taken to Keyport for the skipper’s initials, both men resumed their seats by Sanford’s desk.

“ Anything left of the old house, captain ? ” asked Sanford, picking up a rough sketch of the new shanty to be built on the Ledge, — the one used the previous year, while the artificial island was being built, having been injured by the winter storms.

“ Not much, sir: one side’s stove in an’ the roof’s smashed. Some o’ the men are in it now, gittin’ things in shape, but it’s purty rickety. I’m a-goin’ to put the new one here,” — his finger on the drawing, — “an’ I’m goin’ to make it o’ tongue-an’-grooved stuff an’ tar the roof ter git it water-tight. Then I 'll hev some iron bands made with turnbuckles to go over the top timbers an’ fasten it all down in the stone-pile. Oh, we’ ll git her so she 'll stay put when hell breaks loose some night down Montauk way! ” and another hearty laugh rang out as he rolled up the drawing and tucked it in the case for safety.

“ There’s no doubt “we 'll have plenty of that, captain,” said Sanford, joining in the laugh. “And now about the working force. Will you make many changes ?”

“ No, sir. We ’ll put Caleb West in charge of the divin’ ; ain’t no better man ’n Caleb in er out a dress. Them enrockments is mighty ugly things to set under water, an’ I won’t trust nobody but Caleb to do it. Lonny Bowles 'll help tend derricks ; an’ there ’s our regular gang, — George Nickles an’ the rest of ’em. I only got one new man so far : that’s a young feller named Bill Lacey. He looks like a skylarkin’ chap, but I kin take that out o’ him. But he kin climb like a eat, an’ we want a man like that to shin the derricks. He ’s tended divers, too, he says, an’ he ’ll do to look after Caleb’s life-line an’ hose when I can’t. By the way, sir, I forgot to ask ye about them derricks. We got to hev four whackin’ big sticks to set them big stone on top o’ the concrete when we git it finished, an’ there ain’t no time to lose on ’em. I thought may be ye ’d order ’em to-day from Medford ? ”

Sanford wrote a telegram to a shipbuilder at Medford ordering “ four, clean, straight, white pine masts not less than twenty inches at the butt,” called his negro servant, Sam, from the adjoining room, and directed the dispatch sent at once.

Captain Joe had risen from his chair and put on his Derby hat, without which he never came to New York, — it was his one concession to metropolitan exactions.

“ But, Captain Joe,” said Sanford, looking up, “ breakfast will be ready in a minute. Young Mr. Hardy is coming, whom you met here once before. You must n’t go.”

“ Not this mornin’, sir. I 've got a lot o’ things to look after fore I catch the 3.10. I ’m obleeged to ye all the same.” As he spoke he humped his arms and shoulders into his pea-jacket and picked up the tin case.

“ Well, I wish you would.” Sanford’s hand now rested on the captain’s shoulder. “ But you know best,” he said, with real disappointment in his tone.

The tie between these two men was no ordinary one. They had worked together long enough to believe in each other. What one lacked, the other possessed. There was, too, a feeling of close comradeship between them, which had strengthened in the years of their acquaintance to downright affection. Sanford shook the big brown hand of the captain and followed him to the top of the stairs, where he stood watching the burly figure descending the spiral staircase, the tin case under his arm, spy-glass fashion.

“You’ll see me in the morning, captain,” Sanford called out, not wanting him to go without another word. “ I ’ll come by the midnight train.”

The captain looked up and waved his hand cheerily in lieu of a reply.

When he had finally disappeared, Sanford turned, and, drawing the heavy curtains of the vestibule, passed through it to his private apartments,

II.

A MORNING’S MAIL.

Sanford dropped into a brown leather chair, and Sam, with the fawning droop of a water spaniel, placed the morning paper before him, moved a small table nearer, on which his master could lay the morning’s mail as it was opened, adjusted the curtains so as to keep the glare from his eyes, and with noiseless tread withdrew to the kitchen.

Whatever the faults of this product of reconstruction might have been, — and Sam had many, — neglect of Sanford’s comfort was not one of them. While he dressed with more care on Sunday afternoons than his master, — generally in that gentleman’s cast-off clothes, and always in his discarded neckties and gloves ; while he smoked his tobacco, purloined his cigars, and occasionally drank his wine, whenever the demands of his social life made such inroads on Sanford’s private stock necessary to maintain a certain prestige among his ebonized brethren, he invariably drew the line at his master’s loose change and his shirt-studs. He had, doubtless, trickling down through his veins some drops of blood, inherited from an old family butler of an ancestor, which, while they permitted him the free use of everything his master ate, drank, and were. — a common privilege of the slave days, — debarred him completely from greater crimes. He possessed, moreover, certain paramount virtues : he never burned a chop, overcooked an egg, or delayed a meal.

His delinquencies — all of them perfectly well known to Sanford — never lost him his master’s confidence. He knew the race, and never expected the impossible. Not only did he place his servant in charge of his household expenditures, but he gave him entire supervision as well of his rooms and their contents.

Sam took the greatest pride in the young engineer’s apartments. They were at the top of one of those old-fashioned, hip-roofed, dormer-windowed houses still to be found on Washington Square, and consisted of five rooms, with dining-room and salon. Of them all, the salon was by far the most spacious. It was a large, high-ceiled room with heavy cornices and mahogany doors ; with wide French windows, one of which opened on a balcony overlooking the square. Against the walls stood low bookcases, their tops covered with curios and the hundred and one knickknacks that encumber a bachelor’s apartment. Above these again hung a collection of etchings and sketches in and out of frames ; many of them signed by fellow members of the Buzzards, a small Bohemian club of ten who often held their meetings here.

Under the frieze ran a continuous shelf, holding samples of half the pots of the universe, from a Heidelberg beermug to an East Indian water-jar; and over the doors were grouped bunches of African arrows, spears, and clubs, and curious barbaric shields ; while the centre of the room was occupied by a square table covered with books and magazines, ash-trays, Japanese ivories, and the like, and set in among them was an umbrellalamp with a shade of sealing-wax red. At intervals about the room were smaller tables, convenient for decanters and crushed ice, and against the walls, facing the piano, were wide divans piled high with silk cushions.

Within easy reach of reading-lamp and chair rested a four-sided bookcase on rollers. This was filled with works on engineering and books of reference; while a high, narrow case between two doors was packed with photographs and engravings of the principal marine structures of our own and other coasts.

Late as was the season, a little wood fire smouldered in the open fireplace, — one of the sentiments to which Sanford clung, — while before it stood the brown leather chair in which he sat.

“ Captain Bell will not be here to breakfast, Sam, but Mr. Hardy is coming,” said Sanford, suddenly recollecting himself.

“Yaas, sah; everything’s ready, sah,” replied Sam, who now that the telegram had been dispatched and the morning papers and letters delivered, had slipped into his white jacket again.

Sanford glanced at the shipping news, ran over the list of arrivals to see if any vessels bringing material for the Light had reached Keyport, picked up the package of letters, a dozen or more, and began cutting the envelopes. He read most of them rapidly, marked them in the margin, and laid them in a pile beside him. There were two which he placed by themselves without opening them. One was from his friend Mrs. Morgan Leroy, inviting him to luncheon the following day, and the other from Major Tom Slocomb, of Pocomoke, Maryland, informing him of his approaching visit to New York, accompanied by his niece, Miss Helen Shirley, of Kent County, — “a daughter, sir, of Colonel Talbot Shirley, one of our foremost citizens, whom I believe you had the honor of meeting during your never-to-be-forgotten visit among us.”

The never-to-be-forgotten visit was one Sanford had made the major the winter before, when he was inspecting the site for a stone and brush jetty he was about to build for the government, in the Chesapeake. This jetty was to be near the major’s famous estates which he had inherited from his wife, “ the widow of Major Talbot, suh.”

Sanford’s daily contact with the major during his visit had rather endeared him to the young engineer. Under all the Pocomokian’s veneer of delightful mendacity, utter shiftlessness, and luxurious extravagance he had detected certain qualities of true loyalty to those whom he loved, and a very tender sympathy for the many in the world worse off than himself. The major’s conversion from a vagabond with gentlemanly instincts to a gentleman with strong Bohemian tendencies, Sanford felt, might have been easily accomplished had a little more money been placed at the Pocomokian’s disposal. Given an endless check-book with unlimited overdrafts, and with settlements made every hundred years, the major would have been a prince among men.

The niece to whom the major referred in his letter lived on an adjoining estate with a relative much nearer of kin. Like many other possessions of this acclimated Marylander, she was really not his niece at all, but another heritage from his deceased wife. Her well-bred air and her lovely face and character had always made her a marked figure wherever she went. The major first saw her on horseback, in a neat-fitting riding-habit which she had made out of some blue army kersey bought at the country store. The poise of her head, the easy grace of her seat, and her admirable horsemanship decided the major at once. Henceforward her name was emblazoned on the scroll of his family tree.

It was not until Sanford had finished his other letters that he turned to that from Mrs. Leroy. He looked first at the circular postmark to see the exact hour at which it had been mailed ; then rising from the big chair, he threw himself on the divan, tucked a pillow under his head, and slowly broke the seal. The envelope was large and square, decorated with the crest of the Leroys in violet wax, and addressed in a clear, round, almost masculine hand. It contained only half a dozen lines, beginning with “ My dear Henry, — If you are going to the Ledge, please stop at Medford and see how my new dining-room is getting on. Be sure to come to luncheon to-morrow, so we can talk it over,” etc., and ending with the hope that he had not taken cold when he left her house the night before.

When Mrs. Leroy’s letter, which Sanford held for some time before him, had been placed at last in its envelope and thrust under the sofa-pillow, he picked up again that of the major, looking for the date of Helen Shirley’s arrival.

“Jack Hardy will be glad,” he said, as he threw the major’s epistle on the table. Then glancing again at the date and initials of Mrs. Leroy’s missive, he put the envelope, as well as the letter, in his pocket, and began pacing the room.

He was evidently restless. He threw wide the sashes of the French window which opened on the iron balcony, letting in the fresh morning air. He looked for a moment over the square below, the hard, pen-line drawing of its trees blurred by the yellow-green bloom of the early spring, rearranged a photograph or two on the mantel, and, picking up a vase filled with roses, inhaled their fragrance and placed them in the centre of the dainty breakfast - table, with its snowy linen and polished silver, that Sam had just been setting near him. Then reseating himself in his chair, he called again to the ever watchful darky, who had been following his movements through the crack of the pantry door. “ Sam.”

“ Yaas, ’r,” came a voice apparently from the far end of the pantry; “ comin’, sah.”

“ Look over the balcony again and see if Mr. Hardy is on his way across the square. It ’s after ten now,” he said, consulting the empire clock with broken columns which decorated the mantel.

“ I ’spec’s dat’s him a-comin’ up now, sah. I yeared de downstairs do’ click a minute ago. Dar he is, sah,”drawing aside the curtain that hid the entrance to the outer hall.

“ Sorry, old man,” came a voice increasing in distinctness as the speaker approached, “ but I could n’t help it. I had a lot of letters to answer this morning, or I should have been on time. Don’t make any difference to you; it’s your day off.”

“ My day off, is it ? I was out of bed this morning at six o’clock. Captain Joe stopped here on his way from the train ; he has just left; and if you had stayed away a minute more, I ’d have breakfasted without you. And that is n’t the worst of it. That Cape Ann sloop I told you of has arrived, and I go to Keyport to-night.”

“ The devil you do ! ” said Jack, a shade of disappointment crossing his face. “That means, I suppose, you won’t be back this spring. How long are you going to be building that lighthouse, anyhow ?”

“Two years more, I’m afraid,” said Sanford thoughtfully. “ Breakfast right away, Sam. Take the seat by the window, Jack. I thought we’d breakfast here instead of in the dining-room ; the air’s fresher.”

Jack opened his cutaway coat, took a rose from the vase, adjusted it in his buttonhole, and spread his napkin over his knees.

He was much the younger of the two men, and his lot in life had been far easier. Junior partner in a large banking-house down town, founded and still sustained by the energy and business tact of his father, he had not found it a difficult task to sail through life without a jar.

“ What do you hear from Crab Island, Jack ? ” asked Sanford, a sly twinkle in his eye, as he passed him the muffins.

“ They’ve started the new club-house,” said Jack, with absolute composure. “We are going to run out that extension you suggested when you were down there last winter.”He clipped his egg lightly, without a change of countenance.

“Anything from Helen Shirley?”

“ Just a line, thanking me for the magazines,”Jack answered in a casual tone, not the faintest interest betraying itself in the inflections of his voice. Sanford thought he detected a slight increase of color on his young friend’s always rosy cheeks.

“ Did she say anything about coming to New York ? ” Sanford asked, looking at Jack quizzically out of the corner of his eye.

“ Yes; now I come to think of it, I believe she did say something about the major’s coming, but nothing very definite.”

Jack spoke as if he had been aroused from some reverie entirely foreign to the subject under discussion. He continued to play with his egg, flecking off the broken bits of shell with the point of his spoon, but with all his pretended composure he could not raise his eyes to those of his host.

“ What a first-class fraud you are, Jack! " said Sanford, laughing at last. He leaned back in his chair and looked at Hardy good - humoredly from under his eyebrows. “ I would have read you Slocomb’s letter, lying right before you, if I had n’t been sure you knew every detail in it. Helen and the major will be here next week, and you have been told the very hour she ’ll arrive, and have staked out every moment of her time. Now don’t try any of your boy’s games on me. What are you going to do next Tuesday night ? ”

Jack laughed, but made no attempt to parry a word of Sanford’s thrust. He looked up at last inquiringly over his plate and said, “ Why ? ”

“ Because I want you to dine here with them. I ’ll ask Mrs. Leroy to matronize Helen. Leroy is still abroad, and she can come. We ’ll get Bock, too, with his ’cello. What ladies are in town ? ”

Jack’s face was aglow in an instant. The possibility of dining in Sanford’s room, with its background of rich color and with all the pretty things about that Helen he knew would love so well, lent instant interest to Sanford’s proposition. He looked about the room. He saw at a glance just where he would seat her after dinner: the divan nearest the curtains was the best. How happy she would be, and how new it would all be to her ! He could have planned nothing more delightful for her. Then remembering that Sanford had asked him a question, he nonchalantly gave the names of several young women he knew who might be agreeable guests. After a moment’s silence he suggested that Sanford leave these details to Mrs. Leroy. Jack knew her tact, and he knew to a nicety just how many young girls Mrs. Leroy would bring. The success of bachelor dinners, from Hardy’s standpoint, was not due to half a dozen young women and two men ; quite the reverse.

The date for the dinner arranged, and the wisdom of leaving the list of guests to Mrs. Leroy agreed upon, the talk drifted into other channels: the Whistler pastels at Klein’s ; the garden-party to be given at Mrs. Leroy’s country-seat near Medford when the new dining-room was finished and the roses were in bloom; the opportunity Sanford might now enjoy of combining business with pleasure, Medford being a short run from Shark Ledge; the success of Smearly’s last portrait at the Academy, a photograph of which lay on the table; the probable change in Slocomb’s fortunes, now that, with the consent of the insurance company who held the mortgage, he had rented what was left of the Widow Talbot’s estate to a strawberry planter from the North, in order to live in New York ; and finally, under Jack’s guidance, back to Helen Shirley’s visit.

When the two men, an hour later, passed into the corridor, Sanford held two letters in his hand ready to mail: one addressed to Major Slocomb, with an inclosure to Miss Shirley, the other to Mrs. Morgan Leroy.

Sam watched them over the balcony until they crossed the square, cut a double shuffle with both feet, admired his black grinning face in the mirror, took a corncob pipe from the shelf in the pantry, filled it with some of Sanford’s best tobacco, and began packing his master’s bag for the night train to Keyport.

III.

CAPTAIN BOB HOLDS THE THROTTLE.

It was not yet five o’clock, though the sun had been up for an hour, when Sanford arrived at Keyport. He turned quickly toward the road leading from the station to Captain Joe’s cottage, a spring and lightness in his step which indicated not only robust health, but an eagerness to reach at once the work absorbing his mind. When he gained the high ground overlooking the cottage and dock, he paused for a view that always charmed him with its play of light and color, and which seemed never so beautiful as in the early morning light.

Below him lay Keyport village, built about a rocky half-moon of a harbor, its old wharves piled high with rotting oil-barrels and flanked by empty warehouses. Behind these crouched low, grayroofed houses, squatting in a tangle of streets, with here and there a slender white spire tipped with a restless weathervane. Higher, on the hills, nestled some old houses with sloping roofs and wide porches, and away up on the crest of the heights, overlooking the sea, stood the more costly structures with well-shaved lawns.

The brimming harbor itself was dotted with motionless yachts and various fishing - craft, all reflected upside down in the still sea, its glassy surface rippled now and then by the dipping buckets of men washing down the decks, or by the quick water-spider strokes of some lobster-fisherman pulling homeward with his catch, the click of the rowlocks pulsating in the breathless morning air.

On the near point of the luilf-moon stood Keyport Light, an old-fashioned factory chimney of a light, built of brick, but painted snow - white with a black cigar band around its middle, its top surmounted by a copper lantern. This flashed red and white at night, over a radius of twenty miles. Braced up against its base, for a better hold, was a little building hiding a great fog-horn, which on thick days and nights bellowed out its welcome to Keyport’s best. On the far point of the moon — the one opposite the Light, and some two miles away — stretched sea - meadows broken with clumps of rock and shelter-houses for cattle. Between these two points, almost athwart the mouth of the harbor, like a huge motionless whale, its backbone knotted with summer cottages, lay Crotch Island. Beyond the island away out under the white glare of the risen sun could be seen a speck of purplish-gray fringed with bright splashes of spray glinting in the dazzling light. This was Shark’s Ledge.

As Sanford looked toward the site of the new Light a strange sensation came over him. There lay the work on which his reputation would rest and by which he would hereafter be judged. Everything else he had so far accomplished was, he knew, but a preparation for this his greatest undertaking. Not only were the engineering problems involved new to his experience, but in his attitude in regard to them he had gone against all precedents as well as against the judgments of older heads, and had relied almost alone on Captain Joe’s personal skill and pluck. The risk, then, was his own. While he never doubted his ultimate success, there always came a tugging at his heartstrings whenever he looked toward the site of the lighthouse, and a tightening of his throat which proved, almost unconsciously to himself, how well lie understood the magnitude of the work before him.

Turning from the scene, he walked with slackened step down the slope that led to the long dock fronting the captain’s cottage. As he drew nearer lie saw that the Screamer had been moored between the captain’s dock (always lumbered with paraphernalia required for sea-work) and the great granite-wharf, which was piled high with enormous cubes of stone, each as big as two pianos.

The sloop was just such a boat as Captain Joe had described, — a stanch, heavily built Eastern stone-sloop, with a stout mast and a heavy boom always used as a derrick. On her forward deck was bolted a hoisting-engine, and thrust up through the hatch of the forecastle was the smoke-stack of the boiler, already puffing trial feathers of white steam into the morning air. Captain Joe had evidently seen no reason to change his mind about her, for he was at the moment on her after-deck, overhauling a heavy coil of manilla rope, and reeving it in the block himself, the men standing by to catch the end of the line.

When Sanford joined the group there was no general touching of hats, — outward sign of deference that a group of laborers on land would have paid their employer. In a certain sense, each man was chief here. Each man knew his duty and did it.\, quietly, effectually, and cheerfully. The day’s work had no limit of hours. The pay was never fixed by a board of delegates, one half of whom could not tell a marlinespike from a monkey-wrench. The men had enlisted for a war with winds and storms and changing seas, and victory meant something more to them than pay once a month and plum duff once a week. It meant hours of battling with the sea, of tugging at the lines, waist-deep in the boiling surf that rolled in from Montauk. It meant constant, unceasing vigilance day and night, in order that some exposed site necessary for a bedstone might be captured and held before a southeaster could wreck it, and thus a vantage-point be lost in the laying of the masonry.

Each man took his share of wet and cold and exposure without grumbling. When a cowardly and selfish spirit joined the force, Captain Joe. on his first word of complaint, handed him his money and put him ashore. It was only against those common enemies, the winds and the seas, that murmurs were heard. " Drat that, wind ! ” onewould say. “ Here she’s a-haulin’ to the east’rd agin, an’ we ain’t got them j’iiits [in the masonry] p’inted.” Or. “ It makes a man sick to see th’ way this month ’s been a-goin’ on, — not a decent day since las’ Tuesday.”

Sanford liked these men. He was always at home with them. He loved their courage, their grit, their loyalty to one another and to the work itself. The absence of ceremony among them never offended him. His cheery “ Good-morning ” as he stepped aboard was as cheerily answered.

Captain Joe stopped work long enough to shake Sanford’s hand and to present him to the newcomer, Captain Bob Brandt of the Screamer.

“ Cap’n Bob!” he called, waving his hand.

“ Ay, ay, sir ! ” came the ready response of his early training.

“Come aft, sir. Mr. Sanford wants ye.” The “ sir ” was merely a recognition of the captain’s rank.

A tall, straight, blue-eyed young fellow of twenty-two, with a face like an open book, walked down the deck toward where Sanford stood, — one of those perfectly simple, absolutely fearless, alert men found so often on the New England coast, with legs and arms of steel, body of hickory, and hands of whalebone: cabin-boy at twelve, common sailor at sixteen, first mate at twenty, and full captain the year he voted.

Sanford looked him all over, from his shoes to his cap. He knew a round man when he saw him. This one seemed to be without a flaw. He saw too that he possessed that yeast of good nature without which the best of men are heavy and dull.

“ Can you lift these blocks, Captain Brandt ? ” he asked in a hearty tone, more like that of a comrade than an employer, his hand extended in greeting.

“ Well, I can try, sir,” came the modest reply, the young man’s face lighting up as he looked into Sanford’s eyes, where he read with equal quickness a ready appreciation, so encouraging to every man who intends to do his best.

Captain Brandt and every member of the gang knew that it was not the mere weight of these enrockment blocks which made the handling of them so serious a matter; twelve tons is a light lift for many boat - derricks. It was the fact that they must be loaded aboard a vessel not only small enough to be easily handled in any reasonable weather, but with a water-draught shoal enough to permit her lying safely in a running tide alongside the Ledge while the individual stones were being lowered over her side.

The hangers-on about the dock questioned whether any sloop could do this work.

“ Billy,” said old Marrows, an assumed authority on stone-sloops, but not in Sanford’s employ, although a constant applicant, “ I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ agin her beam, mind, but she’s too peaked forrud. ’Nother thing, when she’s got them stones slung, them chain-plates won’t hold ’er shrouds. I would n’t be s’prised to see that mast jerked clean out’er her.”

Bill Lacey, the handsome young rigger, leaned over the sloop’s rail, scanned every bolt in her plates, glanced up at the standing rigging, tried it with his hand as if it were a tight-rope, and with a satisfied air remarked : “ Them plates is all right, Marrows, — it’s her b’iler that’s a-worryin’ me. What do you say, Caleb ? ” turning to Caleb West, a broadshouldered, grizzled man in a sou’wester, who was mending a leak in a divingdress, the odor of the burning cement mingling with the savory smell of frying ham coming up from the galley.

“ Wall, I ain’t said, Billy,” replied Caleb in a cheery voice, stroking his bushy gray beard. “ Them as don’t know better keep shet.”

There was a loud laugh at the young rigger’s expense, in which everybody except Lacey and Caleb joined. Lacey’s face hardened under the thrust, while Caleb still smiled, a quaint expression overspreading his features, — one that often came when something pleased him, and which by its sweetness showed how little venom lay behind his reproofs.

“ These ’ere sloops is jes’ like women,” said George Nickles, the cook, a big, oily man, with his sleeves rolled up above his elbows, a greasy apron about his waist. He was dipping a bucket overboard. " Ye can’t tell nothin’ about ’em till ye tries ’em.”

The application of the simile not being immediately apparent, nobody 'answered. Lacey stole a look at Nickles and then at Caleb, to see if the shot had been meant for him, and meeting the diver’s unconscious clear blue eyes, looked seaward again.

Lonny Bowles, a big derrickman from Noank quarries, in a red shirt, discolored on the back with a pink Y where his suspenders had crossed, moved nearer and joined in the discussion.

“ She kin h’ist any two on ’em,” he said, “ an’ never wet ’er deck combin’s. I seen them Cape Ann sloops afore, when we wuz buildin’ Stonin’ton breakwater. Yer would n’t believe they had it in ’em till ye see ’em work. Her b’iler’s all right.”

“ Don’t you like the sloop, Caleb ? ” said Sanford, who had been listening, moving a rebellious leg of the rubber dress to sit the closer. " Don’t you think she ’ll do her work? ”

“ Well, sir, of course I ain’t knowed ’er long ’nough to swear by yit. She’s fittin’ for loadin’ ’em on land, may be, but she may have some trouble gittin’ rid of ’em at the Ledge. Her b’iler looks kind o’ weak to me,” said the master diver, stirring the boiling cement with his sheath-knife, the rubber suit sprawled out over his knees, the awkward, stiff, empty legs and arms of the dress flopping about as he patched its many leaks. “ But if Cap’n Joe says she’s all right, ye can pin to her.”

Sanford moved a little closer to Caleb, one of his stanchest friends among the men, holding the pan of cement for him, and watching him at work. He had known him for years as a fearless diver of marvelous pluck and endurance ; one capable of working seven consecutive hours under water. He had done this only the year before, just after entering Sanford’s employ, — when an English bark ran on top of Big Spindle Reef and backed off into one hundred and ten feet of water. The captain and six of the crew were saved, but the captain’s wife, helpless in the cabin, was drowned. Caleb went below, cleared away the broken deck that pinned her down, and brought her body up in his arms. His helmet was spattered inside with the blood that trickled from his ears, owing to the enormous pressure of the sea.

The constant facing of dangers like these had made of the diver a quiet, reticent man. There was, too, a gentleness and quaint patience about him that always appealed to Sanford. Of late his pale blue eyes seemed to shine with a softer light, as if he were perpetually hugging some happiness to himself. Since he had joined Sanford’s working force he had married a second and a younger wife, — a mere child, the men said, — young enough to be his daughter, too young for a man of forty-five. But those who knew him best said that all this happy gentleness had come with the girl wife.

His cabin, a small, two-story affair, bought with the money he had saved during his fifteen years on the Lightship and after his first wife’s death, lay a short distance up the shore above that of Captain Joe, and in plain sight of where they both sat. Just before Sanford had taken his seat beside the diver, he had seen him wave his hand gayly in answer to a blue apron tossing on its distant porch. Bill Lacey had seen the apron too, and had answered it a moment later with a little wave of his own. Caleb did not notice Billy’s signal, but Captain Joe did, and a peculiar look filled his eye that the men did not often see. In his confusion Lacey flushed scarlet, and upset the pan of cement.

When the men turned to wash their hands for breakfast, Sanford slipped his clothes and plunged overboard, one of the crew holding the sail flat to shield him from the shore. His frequent dips always amused Captain Joe, who was so often overboard without his consent and in his clothes, that he could never understand why any other man should take to the element from choice, even if he left his garments on board ship.

Captain Joe soused a bucket overboard, rested it on the rail and plunged in his hands, the splashing drops glistening in the sunlight.

“ Come, Mr. Sanford, — breakfast’s ready, men,” he called. Then, waving his hand to Caleb and the others, he said laughing, All you men what’s giftin’ skeery 'bout the Screamer kin step ashore. I’ m a-goin’ to load three o’ them stone aboard the sloop after breakfast, if 1 roll her over bottom side up.”

Sanford sat at the head of the table, his back to the companionway, the crew’s bunks within reach of his hand. He was the only man who wore a coat. Before him were fried eggs sizzling in squares of pork ; hashed potatoes, browned in what was left of the sizzle ; saleratus biscuit, full of dark spots ; and coffee in tin cups. There was also a small jug of molasses, protected by a pewter top, and a bottle of tomato catsup, its contents repeatedly spattered over every plate.

Long years of association had familiarized Sanford with certain rules of etiquette to be always observed at a meal like this. Whoever finished first he knew must push back his stool out of the way and instantly mount to the deck. In confined quarters, elbow-room is a luxury, and its free gift a courtesy. He also knew that to leave anything on his plate would have been regarded as an evidence of extreme bad manners, suggesting beside a reflection upon the skill of the cook. It was also a part of the code to wipe one’s knife carefully on the last piece of bread, which was to he swallowed immediately, thus obliterating all traces of the repast, except, of course, the bones, which must be picked clean and piled on one side of the plate. Captain Joe never neglected these little amenities.

Sanford forgot none of them. He drank from his tin cup, and ate his eggs and fried ham apparently with the same zest that he would have felt before one of Sam’s choicest breakfasts. He found something wonderfully inspiring in watching a group of big, strong, broad-breasted, horny-banded laboring men intent on satisfying a hunger born of fresh air and hard labor. There was an eagerness about their movements, a relish as each mouthful disappeared, attended by a good humor and sound digestion that would have given a sallow-faced dyspeptic a new view of life, and gone far toward converting a dilettante to the belief that although forks and napkins were perhaps indispensable luxuries, existence would not be wholly desolate with plain fingers and shirt-cuffs.

Captain Joe was the first man on deck. He had left his pea-jacket in the cabin, and now wore his every-day outfit — the blue flannel shirt, long since stretched out of shape in its efforts to accommodate itself to the spread of his shoulders, and a pair of trousers in which each corrugated wrinkle outlined a knotted muscle twisted up and down his sturdy rudder-posts of legs.

“ Come, men! ” he called in a commanding voice, with none of the gentler tones heard at the breakfast - table. “ Pull yourselves together. Bill Lacey, lower away that hook and git them chains ready. Fire up, Cap’n Brandt, and give ’t every pound o’ steam she ’ll carry. Here, one or two of ye, run this ’ere line ashore and make her bow fast. Drop that divin’-suit, Caleb ; this ain’t no time to patch things.”

These orders were volleyed at the men one after another, as he stepped from the sloop to the wharf, each man springing to his place. Sanford, standing by him, gave suggestions in lowered tones, while the sloop was made ready for the trial.

Captain Joe moved down the dock and adjusted with his own hands the steel “ Lewis ” that was to be driven into the big trial stone. Important details like this he never left to others. If this Lewis should slip, with the stone suspended over the sloop’s deck, the huge block would crush through her timbers, sinking her instantly.

The sloop was lying alongside the wharf, with beam and stern lines made fast to the outlying water-spiles to steady her. When the tackle was shaken clear, the boom was lowered at the proper angle ; the heavy chain terminating in an enormous S-hook, which hung immediately over the centre of one of the big enrockment blocks.

The Screamer’s captain held the throttle, watching the steadily rising steam-gauge.

“ Give ’er a turn and take up the slack ! ” shouted Captain Joe.

“ Ay, ay, sir ! ” came the quick answer of the skipper, as the cogs of the hoisting-engine began to move, winding all the loose slackened “ fall ” around the drum, until it straightened out like a telegraph wire.

“ What’s she carryin’ now, Cap’ll Bob ? ” again shouted Captain Joe.

“ Seventy-six pounds, sir.”

“ Give ’er time — don’t push ’er.”

A crowd began to gather on the dock : fishermen and workmen on their way to the village, idlers along the shore road, and others. They all understood that the trial of the sloop was to be made this morning, and great interest was felt. The huge stones had rested all winter on this wharf, and the loungers around every tavern stove in Keyport had discussed and rediscussed their size, until each one outweighed the Pyramids. Loading such pieces on board a vessel like the Screamer had never been done in Keyport before.

Old Marrows’s whispered misgivings, as he made fast a line far up on the wharf, were soon shared by others. Some of the onlookers moved back across the road, yielding to the vague fear of the inexperienced. Bets were offered that “ her mast would be tore clean out of her; ” or that “ she’d put her starboard rail under water afore she ’d start ’em ; ” and that “ she ’d sink where she lay.”

The needle of the gauge on the sloop’s boiler revolved slowly until it registered ninety pounds. Little puffs of blue vaporless steam hissed from the safetyvalve. The boiler was getting ready to do its duty.

Captain Joe looked aloft, ordered the boom topped a few inches, so that the lift would be plumb, sprang upon the sloop’s deck, scrutinized the steam-gauge, saw that the rope was evenly wound on the drum, emptied an oil-can into the sunken wooden saddle in which the butt of the boom rested, followed with his eye every foot of the manilla fall from the drum through the double blocks to the chain hanging over the big stone, called to the people on the dock to get out of harm’s way, and saw that every man was in his place ; then rang out the order, clear and sharp, —

“ Go ahead ! ”

The cogs of the drum of the hoistingengine spun around until the great weight began to tell; then the strokes of the steam-pistons slowed down. The outboard mooring-lines were now tight as standing rigging. The butt of the boom in the sunken saddle was creaking as it turned, a pungent odor from the friction-heated oil filling the air. The strain increased, and the sloop careened toward the wharf until her bilge struck the water, drawing taut as bars of steel her outboard shrouds. Ominous clicks came from the new manilla as its twists were straightened out.

Captain Bob Brandt still stood by the throttle, one of his crew firing, sometimes with cotton waste soaked in kerosene. He was watching every part of his sloop then under strain to see how she stood the test.

The slow movement of the pistons continued. The strain became intense. A dead silence prevailed, broken only by the clicking fall and the creak of the roller blocks. Twice the safety-valve blew a hoarse note of warning.

Slowly, inch by inch, the sloop settled in the water, — stopped suddenly, — quivered her entire length, — gathered herself together, like a strong man gettingwell under his load ; the huge stone canted a point, slid the width of a dock plank, and with a hoarse, scraping sound swung clear of the wharf.

A cheer went up from the motley crowd on the dock. Not a word escaped the men at work. Not a man moved from his place. The worst was yet to come. The swinging stone must yet be lowered on deck.

“Tighten up that guy,” said Captain Joe quietly, between his teeth, never taking his eyes from the stone ; his hand meanwhile on the fall, to test its strain.

Bill Lacey and Caleb ran to the end of the dock, whipped one end of a line around a mooring-post, and with their knees bent to the ground held on with all their strength. The other end of the guy was fastened to the steel S-hook that held the Lewis in the stone.

“ Easy — ea-s-y ! ” said Captain Joe, a momentary shadow of anxiety on his face. The guy held by Caleb and Lacey gradually slackened. The great stone, now free to swing clear, moved slowly in mid-air over the edge of the wharf, passed above the water, cleared the rail of the sloop, and settled on her deck as gently as a grounding balloon.

The cheer that broke from all hands brought the fishwives to their porches.

IV.

AMONG THE BLACKFISH AND TOMCODS.

Hardly had the men ceased cheering when the boom was swung back, another huge stone was lifted from the wharf, and loaded aboard the sloop. A third followed, was lowered upon rollers on the deck and warped amidships, to trim the boat. The mooring-lines were cast off, and the sloop’s sail partly hoisted for better steering, and a nervous, sputtering little tug tightened a tow-line over the Screamer’s bow.

The flotilla now moved slowly out of the harbor toward the Ledge. Captain Brandt stood at the wheel. His face was radiant. His boat had met the test, just as he knew she would. Boat and captain had stood by each other many a time before ; that night at Rockport was one, when they lay bow on to a gale, within a cable’s length of the breakwater. This saw-toothed Ledge could not scare him.

Yet not a word of boasting passed his lips. Whatever the risk to come might be, while she lay to these new floating buoys of Captain Joe’s, he meant to put the stones where the captain wanted them, if the sloop’s bones were laid beside them. Captain Joe, he well knew, never sent another man’s vessel where he would not have sent his own. So Captain Brandt spun his wheel and held his peace.

Close association with Captain Joe always inspired this confidence; not only among his own men, but in all the others who sprang to his orders. His personal magnetism, his enthusiasm, his seemingly reckless fearlessness, and yet extreme caution and watchful care for the safety of his men, had created among them a blind confidence in his judgment that always resulted in immediate and unquestioned obedience to his orders, no matter what the risk might seem.

When the open harbor was reached, the men overhauled the boom - tackle, getting ready for the real work of the day. Bill Lacey and Caleb West lifted the air-pump from its case, and oiled the plunger. Caleb was to dive that day himself, and find a bed for these first three stones as they were lowered under water. Work like this required an experienced hand. Lacey was to tend the life-line.

As the tug and sloop passed into the broad water, Medford Village could be seen toward the southeast. Sanford adjusted his marine-glass, and focused its lens on Mrs. Leroy’s country-house. It lay near the water, and was surmounted by a cupola he had often used as a lookout when he had been Mrs. Leroy’s guest, and the weather had been too rough for him to land at the Ledge. He saw that the bricklayers were really at work, and that the dining-room extension was already well under way, the scaffolding being above the roof. He meant, if the weather permitted, to stop there on his way home.

Soon the Ledge itself loomed up, with its small platforms, and what was left of last year’s shanty. The concrete men were evidently busy, for the white steam from the mixers rose straight into the still air.

An hour more and the windows on the lee side of the shanty could he distinguished, and a little later, the men on the platform as they gathered to await the approaching flotilla. When they caught sight of the big blocks stored on the Screamer’s deck, they broke into a cheer that was followed by a shrill saluting whistle from the big hoistingengine on the Ledge. This was answered as cheerily by the approaching tug. Work on the Ledge could now begin in earnest.

If Crotch Island was like the back of a motionless whale, Shark’s Ledge was like that of a turtle, — a turtle say one hundred and fifty feet long by a hundred wide, lying still in a moving sea, and always fringed by a ruffling of surf curls, or swept by great waves that rolled in from Montauk. No landing could ever be made here except in the eddy formed by the turtle itself, and then only in the stillest weather.

The shell of this rock-incrusted turtle had been formed by dumping on the original Ledge, and completely covering it, thousands of tons of rough stone, each piece as big as a bureau. Upon this stony shell, which rose above high-water mark, a wooden platform had been erected for the proper storage of stone, sand, barrels of cement, hoisting-engines, concrete mixers, tools, and a shanty for the men. It was down by the turtle’s side — down below the slop of the surf — that the big enrockment blocks were to be placed, one on the other, their sides touching close as those on a street pavement. The lowest stone of all was to be laid on the bottom of the sea in thirty feet of water ; the top one was to be placed where its upper edges would be thrust above the sea. In this way the loose rough stones of the turtle’s shell would have a cover, and the finished structure be protected from the crush of floating ice and the fury of winter gales.

By a change of plan the year before, a deep hole nearly sixty feet in diameter had been made in the back of this turtle. This hole was now being filled with concrete up to low-water level and retained in form by circular iron bands. On top of tins enormous artificial bedstone was to be placed the tower of the lighthouse itself, of dressed stone, many of the single pieces to be larger than those now on the Screamer’s deck. The four great derrick-masts with “ twentyinch butts ” which had been ordered by telegraph the day before in Sanford’s office — the telegram Sam took — were to be used to place these dressed stones in position.

The nearest land to the Ledge was Crotch Island, two miles away. To the east stretched the wide sea, hungry for fresh victims, and losing no chance to worst the men on the Ledge. For two years it had fought the captain and his men without avail. The Old Man of the Sea hates the warning voice of the fog-horn and the cheery light in the tall tower — they rob him of his prey.

The tug continued on her course for half a mile, steered closer, the sloop following, and gained the eddy of the Ledge out of the racing tide. Four men from the platform now sprang into a whaleboat and pulled out to meet the sloop, carrying one end of a heavy hawser which was being paid out by the men on the Ledge. The hawser was made fast to the sloop’s cleats and hauled tight. The tug was cast loose and sent back to Keyport. Outboard hawsers were run by the crew of the whaleboat to the floating anchor-buoys, to keep the sloop off the stone-pile when the enrockment blocks were swung clear of her sides.

Caleb and Lacey began at once to overhaul the diving-gear. The air-pump was set close to the sloop’s rail; a short ladder was lashed to her side, to enable the diver to reach the water easily. The air-hose and life-lines were then uncoiled. Caleb threw off his coat and trousers, that he might move the more freely in his diving-dress, and with Lonny Bowles’s assistance wormed himself into his rubber suit, — body, arms, and legs being made of one piece of air and water tight rubber cloth.

By the time the sloop had been moored, and the boom-tackle made ready to lift the stone, Caleb stood on the ladder completely equipped, except for his copper helmet, which Captain Joe always adjusted himself. On his breast and between his shoulders hung two lead plates weighing twenty-five pounds each, and on his feet were two iron-shod shoes of equal weight. These were needed as ballast, to overbalance the buoyancy of his inflated dress, and enable him to sink or rise at his pleasure. Firmly tied to his wrist was a stout cord, — his lifeline, — and attached to the back of the copper helmet was a long rubber hose, through which a constant stream of fresh air was pumped inside his helmet and dress.

In addition to these necessary appointments there was hung over one shoulder a canvas haversack, containing a small cord, a chisel, a water-compass, and a sheath-knife. The sheath-knife is the last desperate hope of the diver when his air-hose becomes tangled or clogged, his signals are misunderstood, and he must either cut his hose in the effort to free himself and reach the surface, or suffocate where he is.

Captain Joe adjusted the copper helmet, and stood with Caleb’s glass faceplate in his hand, thus leaving his helmet open for a final order, before he lowered him overboard. The cogs of the Screamer’s drum began turning, followed by the same creaking and snapping of manilla and straining of boom that had been heard when she was loaded.

Between the sea and the sloop a fight was now raging. The current which swept by within ten feet of her bilge curled and eddied about the buoy-floats, tugging at their chains, while wave after wave tried to reach her bow, only to fall back beaten and snapping like hungry wolves.

The Cape Ann sloop had fought these fights before. All along her timber rail were the scars of similar battles. If she could keep her bow-cheeks from the teeth of these murderous rocks, she could laugh all day at their open jaws.

When the hoisting-engine was started and the steam began to hiss through the safety-valve, the bow-lines of the sloop straightened like strands of steel. Then there came a slight, staggering movement as she adjusted herself to the shifting weight. Without a sound, the stone rose from the deck, cleared the rail, and hung over the sea. Another cheer went up — this time from both the men on board the sloop and those on the Ledge. Captain Brandt smiled, with closed lips. Life was easy for him now.

“ Lower away,” said Captain Joe in the same tone he would have used in asking for the butter, as he turned to screw on Caleb’s face-plate, shutting out the fresh air, and giving the diver only pumped air to breathe. Screwing on the glass face-plate is the last thing done before a diver goes under water.

The stone sank slowly into the sea, the dust and dirt of its long storage discoloring the clear water.

“Hold her,” continued Captain Joe, his hand still on Caleb’s face-plate, as he stood erect on the ladder. “ Stand by, Billy. Go on with that pump, men, — give him plenty of air.”

Two men began turning the handles of the pump. Caleb’s dress filled out like a balloon ; Lacey took his place near the small ladder, the other end of Caleb’s life-line having been made fast to his wrist, and the diver sank slowly out of sight, his hammer in his hand, the air bubbles from his exhaust-valve marking his downward course.

As Caleb sank, he hugged his arms close to his body, pressed his knees together, forcing the surplus air from his dress, and dropped rapidly toward the bottom. The thick lead soles of his shoes kept his feet down and his head up, and the breast-plates steadied him.

At the depth of twenty feet he touched the tops of the sea-kelp growing on the rocks below, — he could feel the long tongues of leaves scraping his legs. Then, as he sank deeper, his shoes struck an outlying boulder. Caleb floated around this, measured it with his arms, and settled to the gravel. He was now between the outlying boulder and the Ledge. Here he raised himself erect on his feet and looked about: the gravel beneath him was white and spangled with starfish ; little crabs lay motionless, or scuttled away at his crunching tread ; the sides of the isolated boulder were smooth and clean, the top being covered with waving kelp. In the dim, greenish light this boulder looked like a weird head, — a kind of submarine Medusa, with her hair streaming upward. The jagged rock-pile next it resembled a hill of purple and brown corn swaying in the ceaseless current.

Caleb thrust his hand into his haversack, grasped his long knife, slashed at the kelp of the rock-pile to see the bottom stones the clearer, and sent a quick signal of “ All right — lower away ! ” through the life-line, to Lacey, who stood on the sloop’s deck above him.

Almost instantly a huge green shadow edged with a brilliant iridescent light fell about him, growing larger and larger in its descent. Caleb peered upward through his face - plate, followed the course of the stone, and jerked a second signal to Lacey’s wrist. This signal was repeated in words by Lacey to Captain Brandt, who held the throttle, and the shadowy stone was stopped within three feet of the gravel bottom. Here it swayed slowly, half turned, and touched on the boulder.

Caleb watched the stone carefully until it was perfectly still, crept along, swimming with one hand, and measured carefully with his eye the distance between the boulder and the Ledge. Then he sent a quick signal of “ Lower — all gone,” up to Lacey’s wrist. The great stone dropped a chain’s link; slid halfway the boulder, scraping the kelp in its course ; careened, and hung over the gravel with one end tilted on a point of the rocky ledge. As it hung suspended, one end buried itself in the gravel near the boulder, while the other end lay aslant up the slope of the rock-covered ledge.

Caleb again swam carefully around the stone, opened his arms, and inflating his dress rose five or six feet through the green water, floated over the huge stone, and grasping with his bare hand the lowering chain by which the stone hung, tested its strain. The chain was as rigid as a bar of steel. This showed that the stone was not fully grounded, and therefore dangerous, being likely to slide off at any moment. The diver now sent a telegram of short and long jerks aloft, asking for a crowbar ; hooked his legs around the lowering chain and pressed his copper helmet to the chain links to listen to Captain Joe’s answer. A series of dull thuds, long and short, struck by a hammer above — a means of communication often possible when the depth of water is not great — told him that the crowbar he had asked for would be sent down at once. While he waited motionless, a blackfish pressed his nose to the glass of his face-plate, and scurried off to tell his fellows living in the kelp how strange a thing he had seen that day.

A quick jerk from Lacey, and the point of the crowbar dangled over Caleb’s head. In an instant, to prevent his losing it in the kelp, he had lashed another and smaller cord about its middle, and with the bar firmly in his hand laid himself flat on the stone. The diver now examined carefully the points of contact between the boulder and the hanging stone, inserted one end of the bar under its edge, sent a warning signal above, braced both feet against the lowering chain, threw his whole strength on the bar, and gave a sharp, quick pull. The next instant the chain tightened ; the bar, released from the strain, bounded from his hand ; there was a headlong surge of the huge shadowy mass through the waving kelp, and the great block slipped into its place, stirring up the bottom silt in a great cloud of water-dust.

The first stone of the system of enrockment had been bedded !

Caleb clung with both hands to the lowering chain, waited until the water cleared, knocked out the Lewis pin that held the S-hook, thus freeing the chain, and signaled “ All clear — hoist. ” Then he hauled the crowbar towards him by the cord, signaled for the next stone, moved away from the reach of falling bodies, and sat down on a bed of seakelp as comfortably as if it had been a sofa-cushion.

These breathing spells rest the lungs of a diver and lighten his work. Being at rest he can manage his dress the better, inflating it so that he is able to get his air with greater ease and regularity. The relief is sometimes so soothing that in long waits the droning of the air-valve will lull the diver into a sleep, from which he is suddenly awakened by a quick jerk on his wrist. Many divers, while waiting for the movements of those above, play with the fish, watch the crabs, or rake over the gravel in search of the thousand and one things that are lost overboard and that everybody hopes to find on the bottom of the sea.

Caleb did none of these things. He was too expert a diver to allow himself to go to sleep, and he had too much to think about. He sat quietly awaiting his call, his thoughts on the day of the week and how long it would be before Saturday night came again, and whether, when he left that morning, he had arranged everything for the little wife, so that she would be comfortable until his return. Once a lobster, thinking them some tidbit previously unknown, moved slowly up and nipped his red fingers with its claw. The dress terminates at the wrist with a waterproof and air-tight band, leaving the hands bare. At another time two tomcods came sailing past, side by side, flapped their tails on his helmet, and scampered off. But Caleb, sitting comfortably on his sofa-cushion of seaweed thirty feet under water, paid little heed to outside things.

In the world above, a world of fleecy clouds and shimmering sea, some changes had taken place since Caleb sank out of the sunlight. Hardly had the second stone been made ready to be swung overboard and lowered to Caleb, when there came a sudden uplifting of the sea. One of those tramp waves preceding a heavy storm had strayed in from Montauk and was making straight for the Ledge.

Captain Joe sprang on the sloop’s rail and looked seaward, and a shade of disappointment crossed his face.

“ Stand by on that outboard guy ! ” he shouted in a voice that was heard all over the Ledge.

The heavy outboard hawser holding the sloop whipped out of the sea with the sudden strain, thrashed the spray from its twists, and quivered like a fiddlestring. The sloop staggered for an instant ; plunged bow under, careened to her rail, and righted herself within oar’s touch of the Ledge. Three feet from her bilge streak crouched a grinning rock with its teeth set!

Captain Joe smiled and looked at Captain Brandt.

“ Ain’t nothin’ when ye git used to’t, Cap’n Bob. I ain’t a-goin’ ter scratch ’er paint. The jig’s up now till the tide turns. Got to bank yer fires. Them other two stone ’ll have to wait.”

“ Ay, ay, sir,” replied the skipper, throwing the furnace door wide open. Then he walked down the deck and said to Captain Joe in a tone as if he were only asking for information, but without a shade of nervous anxiety, “ If that ’ere hawser ’d parted, Cap’n Joe, when she give that plunge, it would ’a’ been all up with us, — eh? ”

“ Yes, — ’spec’ so,” answered the captain, his mind, now that the danger had passed, neither on the question nor on the answer. Then suddenly awakening with a look of intense interest, " That line was a new one, Cap’n Bob. I picked it out a-purpose; them kind don’t part.”

Sanford, who had been standing by the tiller, anxiously watching the conflict, walked forward and grasped the skipper’s hand.

“ X want to congratulate you,” he said, “ on your sloop and on your pluck. It is not every man can lie around this stone-pile for the first time and keep his head.”

Captain Brandt flushed like a bashful girl, and turned away his face. " Well, sir — ye see ” — He never finished the sentence. The compliment had upset him more than the escape of the sloop.

All was bustle now on board the Screamer. The boom was swung in aboard, lowered, and laid on the deck. Caleb had been hauled up to the surface, his helmet unscrewed, and his shoes and breast-plate taken off. He still wore his dress, so that he could be ready for the other two stones when the tide turned. Meanwhile he walked about the deck looking like a great bear on his hind legs, his bushy beard puffed out over his copper collar.

During the interval of the change of tide dinner was announced, and the Screamer’s crew went below to more sizzle and dough-balls, and this time a piece of corned beef, while Sanford, Captain Joe, Caleb, and Lacey sprang into the sloop’s yawl and sculled for the shanty, keeping close to the hawser still holding the sloop.

The unexpected made half the battle at the Ledge. It was not unusual to see a southeast roll, three days old, cut down in an hour to the smoothness of a millpond by a northwest gale, and before night to find this same dead calm followed by a semi-cyclone. Only an expert could checkmate the consequences of weather manæuvres like these. Before Captain Joe had filled each man’s plate with his fair porportion of cabbage and pork, a whiff of wind puffed in the bit of calico that served as a curtain for the shanty’s pantry window, — the one facing east. Captain Joe sprang from his seat, and, bareheaded as he was, mounted the concrete platforms and looked seaward. Off towards Block Island he saw a little wrinkling line of silver flashing out of the deepening haze, while toward Crotch Island scattered flurries of wind furred the glittering surface of the sea with dull splotches, — as when one breathes upon a mirror. The captain turned quickly, entered the shanty, and examined the barometer. It had fallen two points.

“Finish yer dinner, men,” he said quietly. “ That’s the las’ stone to-day, Mr. Sanford. It’s beginnin’ ter git lumpy. It ’ll blow a livin’ gale o’ wind by sundown.”

A second and stronger puff now swayed the men’s oilskins, hanging against the east door. This time the air was colder and more moist. The sky overhead had thickened. In the southeast lay two sundog clouds, their backs shimmering like opals, while about the feverish eye of the sun gathered a reddish circle like an inflammation.

Sanford was on the platform, reading the signs of the coming gale. It was important that he should reach Keyport by night, and he had no time to spare. As the men came out one after another, each of them glanced toward the horizon, and quickening his movements fell to work putting the place in order. The loose barrow planks were quickly racked up on the shanty’s roof, out of the wash of the surf ; an extra safety - guy was made fast to the platform holding the hoisting - engine, and a great tarpaulin drawn over the cement and lashed fast. Captain Joe busied himself meanwhile in examining the turnbuckles of the iron holding - down rods, which bound the shanty to the Ledge, and giving them another tightening twist. He ordered the heavy wooden shutters for the east side of the shanty to be put up, and saw that the stovepipe that stuck through the roof was taken down and stored inside.

The Screamer tugged harder at her hawser, her how surging as the ever-increasing swell raced past her. Orders to man the yawl were given and promptly obeyed. Captain Joe was the last to step into the boat.

“ Keep everything snug, Caleb, while I’m gone,” he shouted. “ It looks soapy, but it may be out to the nor’ard an’ clear by daylight. Sit astern, Mr. Sanford. Pull away, men, we ain’t got a minute.”

When the Screamer, with two unset stones still on her deck, bore away from the Ledge with Sanford, Captain Joe, and Lacey on board, the spray was flying over the shanty roof.

Caleb stood on the platform waving his hand. He was still in his divingdress.

“ Tell Betty I ’ll be home for Sunday,” the men heard him call out, as they flew by under close reef.

F. Hopkinson Smith.

(To be continued.)