Fair Harbor | Page 8

nose and the apple cheeks above.
"Cap'n Sears, sir," repeated the driver of the truck-wagon, "I'm proud to see you on deck again, sir. Darned if I ain't!"
The captain leaned forward and shook the big red hand extended across the fence pickets.
"Judah Cahoon, you old salt herrin'," he cried heartily, "I'm just as glad to see you! But what in the world are you doin' here in Bayport?"
CHAPTER II
Mr. Cahoon's grin vanished and the expression of his face above the whiskers indicated extreme surprise.
"What am I doin' here?" he repeated. "Didn't you know I was here, Cap'n Sears?"
"Of course I didn't. The last I heard of you you had shipped as cook aboard the Gallant Rover and was bound for Calcutta, or Singapore or somewhere in those latitudes. And that was only a year ago. What are you doin' on the Cape and pilotin' that kind of a craft?" indicating the truck wagon.
The question was ignored. "Didn't they never tell you I was here?" demanded Judah. "Didn't that Joel Macomber tell you I been hailin' him every time he crossed my bows, askin' about you every day since you run on the rocks? Didn't he tell you that?"
"No."
"Never give you my respects nor--nor kind rememberances, nor nawthin'?"
"Not a word. Never so much as mentioned your name."
"The red-headed shark!"
"There! There! Sshh! Never mind him. Come in here and sit down a minute, can't you? Or are you in a hurry?"
"Eh? No-o, I ain't in no 'special hurry. Just got a deck load of seaweed aboard carting it up home, that's all."
"Home? What home?"
"Why, where I'm livin'. I call it home; anyhow it's all the home I got. Eh? Why, Cap'n Sears, ain't they never told you that I'm livin' at the Minot place?"
"The Minot place! Why--why, man alive, you don't mean the General Minot place, do you?"
"Um-hm. That's what folks down here call it. There ain't no Generals there though."
"And you are livin' in the General Minot house? Look here, Judah, are you trying to make a fool of me?"
Mr. Cahoon's countenance--that portion of it above the whisker tidemark, of course--registered horror at the thought. He had been cook and steward aboard Captain Kendrick's ships for many voyages and his feeling for his former skipper was close kin to idolatry.
"Eh?" he gasped. "Me try to make a fool out of you, Cap'n Sears? Me? No, no, I got some sense left, I hope."
Kendrick smiled. "Oh, the thing isn't impossible, Judah," he observed dryly. "It has been done. I have been made a fool of and more than once.... But there, never mind that. I want to know what you are doin' at the General Minot place. Come aboard here and tell me about it. You can leave your horse, can't you? He doesn't look as if he was liable to run away."
"Run away! Him?" Judah snorted disgust. "Limpin' Moses! He won't run away for the same reason old Cap'n Eben Gould didn't say his prayers--he's forgot how. I was out with that horse on the flats last week and the tide pretty nigh caught us. The water in the main channel was so deep that it was clean up to the critter's garboard strake, and still, by the creepin', I couldn't get him out of a walk. I thought there one spell he might drift away, but I knew dum well he'd never run.... Whoa! you--you hipponoceros you!" addressing the ancient animal, who was placidly gnawing at the Macomber hitching post. "'Vast heavin' on that post! Look at the blasted idiot!" with huge disgust. "To home, by the creepin', he'll turn up his nose at good hay and then he'll cruise out here and start to swaller a wood fence. Whoa! Back! Back, or I'll--I'll bore a hole in you and scuttle you."
The old horse condescended to back for perhaps two feet, a proceeding which elicited a grunt of grudging approval from Mr. Cahoon. The latter then settled himself with a thump upon the settee beside Captain Kendrick.
"How's the spars splicin'?" he inquired, with a jerk of his thumb toward the captain's legs. "Gettin' so you can navigate with 'em? Stand up under sail, will they?"
"Not for much of a cruise," replied Sears, using the same nautical phraseology. "I shan't be able to run under anything but a jury rig for a good while, I'm afraid. But never mind the spars. I want to know how you happen to be down here in Bayport, and especially what on earth you are doin' at the Minot place? Somebody died and left you a million?"
Mr. Cahoon's whiskers were split again by his wide grin.
"If I was left a million I'd die," he observed with emphasis. "No, no, nothin' like that, Cap'n. I'm there along of ... humph! You know young Ogden Minot, don't you?"
"No,