If for no other reason, that sly smile of my mother's French maid would have kept me at home that day. I was still strolling about the place, just before luncheon, when I saw Mr. Chester Downes' spare figure and his tall hat coming up the hill. I went down the path and met him at the steps which mounted the little terrace from the street to our lawn.

"Oh!" he ejaculated. "Are you here?"

"You are just in time to catch me as I was going out, Mr. Downes," I said. "What have you to say to me, sir?"

"Nothing, young man-nothing," he exclaimed.

"You certainly have not walked over here merely for the pleasure of looking at the house," I said, smartly.

"I have come to see your mother, sir. And I propose to see her," he said. "Last night I did not wish to make a disturbance while she was so ill. But I understand from Dr. Eldridge that she is much improved--"

"You are correct there, Mr. Downes," I said. "And she will continue to improve I hope. But whether she is well or ill, you cannot see her."

"Nonsense, boy! you are crazy. Do you know that I am a man, your uncle, and your mother's business agent? Bold as you are, sir, you are a minor."

"I never wanted to wish my life away before, sir," I said, gravely. "But I do sincerely wish that I was of age, Mr. Downes. However, I believe I shall be able to hold my own with you, sir. At least, I shall try. And if this is to be your course I shall know what to do. Before you get into that house to trouble my mother again, I'll place a guard around it."

"You talk ridiculously. You cannot do such a thing."

"No, perhaps not. And fortunately, I shan't have to take such extreme measures. I have a better way of keeping you off the premises."

"You would not dare do what you threatened last night, Clinton Webb," he said, his voice shaking with anger.

"You pass me and go up to that door, and see whether I dare or not," I returned, my eyes flashing. "Paul tried to stab me. I'll have him arrested if he is in Bolderhead still, and if he has run away I'll find means of having him brought back here to stand trial."

I was just as earnest as ever I was about anything in my life, and I guess Mr. Chester Downes realized it. He had gone away the night before in haste; but after thinking over the situation he believed that I could be browbeaten and my will set aside. He stared at me, with his dark, Indian-looking face reddening under the skin, and Paul had not looked at me more murderously the night before when we quarreled aboard the Wavecrest, than his father did now!

"Why, sir," said Mr. Downes at last, "this is a most ridiculous thing for you to do. I can write to your mother-and I shall. She will demand that I attend her--"

"Until she does so, just take notice that you're not to come here," I interrupted. "That is, if you want Paul to stay out of jail."

I turned on my heel then and walked back to the house, and he-after hesitating a half minute or so-turned likewise and stalked down the hill. I was pretty sure he would not come back-not in that tall hat, anyway-for before luncheon was over it had begun to rain and rained hard. There was a sharp wind from the northwest-nor'-nor'-west, to be exact-and everybody within a hundred miles of Cape Ann knows what that means. In all probability we were in for a long offshore gale.

So I risked going over the ferry that afternoon on an errand. I did not propose to get caught out on the Wavecrest again without provisions, and I purchased half a boat load of canned goods and the like, and a couple of cases of spring water. While I was hunting for a boat and a man to take my purchases aboard the sloop I ran against my cousin Paul.

He was not alone, and the instant I spied him with two hang-dog fellows, I knew he was-like the hen in the story-"laying for me!" Paul Downes knew half the riff-raff of Bolderhead which, like most small seaports, boasted more than a sufficient quantity of wharf-rats. Mr. Downes had been wont to expatiate to my mother on my taste for low company; but he must have had his own son in mind. Paul certainly picked sour fruit when he made friends along the water-front of Bolderhead!

"That's the feller," snarled my cousin-I could read his lips, although the trio was across the narrow street as I went along the docks-and I knew very well that he was hatching something against me with his two friends.

But they were not likely to pitch upon me here in broad daylight, so I paid them little heed at the moment. I found old Crab Bolster and his skiff to lighter my cargo across the inlet, and when the boy came down from the store with the barrow, Crab and I loaded the provisions and spring water into his boat. Paul and his companions looked on, whispering together now and then, from a neighboring wharf.

I was not wholly a fool if I was so well satisfied with my own smartness. My success in settling Mr. Chester Downes had of course given me an inflated opinion of myself; but I knew better than to overlook the possibility of my cousin being able to do me some mean trick, especially with the help of the two fellows he was with.

When Crab Bolster and I set off in the skiff for the Wavecrest, I saw Paul and his friends make for the ferry, and while I helped pull the skiff in the drizzle of rain that swept across the harbor, I saw the three board the ferryboat and land at the dock on the Neck near which we lived.

I made Crab hustle the goods aboard and stowed all away in the cuddy before I let the boatman put me ashore. Paul and his friends were hanging about the landing.

"Keep your eye on my Wavecrest, will you, Lampton?" I said to the man who owned the landing, and kept boats for hire. "Remember, nobody's to go aboard of the sloop without my special permission," and I glanced pointedly at my cousin.

"I'll see to that, sir," said Lampton, who was my friend, I knew. "And in this weather, and with the wind the way she is, anybody would be crazy to want to take a boat out through the breach."

I went back to the house in ample time for dinner, and Ham, who had been on the watch, reported that my uncle had not again tried to enter the house. But I was worried about Paul and his henchmen. I couldn't rest in the house after dark. If they couldn't get a boat on the Neck side of the harbor in which to go out to the Wavecrest, they might come across from the town side and do her some damage.

Mother had come down to dinner and we had one of our old-fashioned, homey meals, followed by a pleasant hour in the drawing-room, where she played and sang for me. It was her pleasure that I should dress for dinner just as though company was to be present, and she trained me in the niceties of life, and in bits of etiquette, for which I have often, in later times, been very thankful. For although I found my amusement in rough adventure and my companionship for the most part among seamen and fishermen, it hurts no boy or man to be as well grounded in the tenets of polite society as in writing, reading, and arithmetic!

The subject that was uppermost in my mind-that hazy mystery surrounding my father's death-did not come up between us on this evening. Nor did the unpleasant topic of the Downeses come to the fore. I am very, very glad to remember that my mother looked her prettiest, that she gave me the tenderest of kisses when she bade me goodnight early, and that we parted very lovingly.

I went up to my room, but only to put on a warmer suit-a fishing suit in fact. I shrugged myself into oilskin pants and jacket, too, in the back shed, and exchanged my cap for a sou'wester. Then I sallied forth through a pelting rain, with the gale whistling a sharp tune behind me, and descended the hill toward the point off which the Wavecrest was moored.

I had said nothing to anybody about my intention. I do not think that any of the servants saw me go. I left my home without any particular thought of the future, or any serious cogitation as to what would be the result of my act.

Merely, I had put two and two together in my mind-and I would sleep aboard the Wavecrest.

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