The on-shore wind, blowing the cloud of fog before it, was a better friend to the German fugitive than it was to his pursuers. The search was a long and blind one, and all of the boats that scattered to find him came back with only failure to report. Some of them had seen a big white yacht go by them in the mist, but as such vessels were so common along the coast at that season, little notice had been taken of her. One boat, indeed, had come close enough to ask whether she had seen any such craft as the catboat they were seeking, and had been directed to bear off to the southward, as the yacht had sighted just such a boat near Andrew’s Point. When the little catboat was finally found, however, floating idly with the tide, far to the north of Andrew’s Point and just where the yacht might easily have passed her, suspicions began to arise as to how the German had escaped. Inquiry was made all along the coast, but without bringing any news to light. The millionaire purchaser of an estate on Appledore Island seemed to have vanished completely.

Almost the first words that Captain Saulsby spoke were to ask what had become of that “son-of-a-gun of a friend of the Kaiser’s.” When he learned that in spite of all possible efforts the man had got clean away, he announced at first that he was too disgusted to try to get well; but altered his decision a little later.

“If the whole United States Navy can’t catch a man like that,” he said weakly to Billy, “I guess it’s Ned Saulsby’s duty to keep in the world a little longer, and try to be a match for the rascal.”

The doctor said that the old sailor’s recovery was miraculously quick; the Captain himself, that it was “slower than a wet week.” “That woman,” he would say, indicating the long-suffering nurse, “that woman that’s all rustles and starch and has no real heart, she keeps me down, when the only thing I need to get well is to walk out along the garden path and feel the good, warm sunshine on my back.”

A day came, however, when “that woman’s” reign was over and she and the old captain bade each other good-bye. They had become fast friends even in spite of their frequent clashes of opinion, so the parting, which took place in Billy’s presence, was a most affectionate one.

“I may have spoken roughly to you, my dear,” Captain Saulsby said, apologetically, “but I was sure, even at the time, that you were forgiving me right along. And there’s no one that can deny that you spoke roughly to me many a time, and good cause you had to do it, too. I’m that spoiled that, now I’m to be my own master again, I really don’t know how to hand myself my chicken broth.”

“I’m truly sorry to leave you, Captain,” the girl answered; “you are quite the worst patient I ever tried to manage, but I think you have done me the most credit.”

She went away down the path, Captain Saulsby looking after her with a very grave face. Then he turned and hobbled into the house to kindle a fire in his little stove.

“It’s too bad she’s gone,” he said solemnly to Billy, “but—the way I’ve longed for fried onions!” He heaved a mighty sigh of relief and put a frying pan on the stove to heat. The whole of the cottage became filled presently with an odor that caused Captain Saulsby to sniff delightedly, but that would have made the nurse throw open every door and window.

When the delectable repast was over he came and sat down in the doorway and filled a pipe whose perfume rivalled that of even the onions.

“I’ll have to smoke night and day for a while,” he said, “to catch up on myself. Whew-ew, but that is good!”

Jacky Shute had laboured manfully in the garden during Captain Saulsby’s illness. Even his small remnant of a conscience smote him when he was tempted to neglect the weeds, and the Captain’s comment, “shipshape as can be, Jacky; I didn’t know you had it in you,” made his small countenance beam with pride.

The delicate, crinkled poppies were blooming abundantly throughout the garden. It was the season when they were in their full glory, when all else in Captain Saulsby’s little place, the vegetables, the currant bushes, and the fruit trees, must be quite cast into the shade. The old sailor ventured forth on a short tour of inspection, and actually managed to reach the bench down by the hedge where he and Billy had sat upon the day they became acquainted.

“It doesn’t look so bad,” he remarked complacently as he viewed his small domain. “Of course, raising flowers and garden truck is a mighty little business after you have once followed the sea, but an old sailor likes to have things as they should be, whether he’s at sea or ashore. No,” he looked over the place again with a pleased smile, “no, it doesn’t look so bad.”

One of the summer visitors came along the path to ask for some of the packets of poppy-seed that Captain Saulsby, although he made a business of selling them, always parted with most grudingly. This woman he looked over long and severely, and asked her many searching questions before he finally drew a package of seeds from his pocket and graciously allowed her to buy it.

“She looks to me like one of those women who would try to grow poppies in a pot,” he said to Billy after she had gone. “I didn’t really quite trust her, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. She came from up Boston way: that was what saved her. I hope she will really take care of them.”

“I’ve noticed you won’t sell seeds to everybody,” Billy said. “Don’t you like to think that your flowers will be growing everywhere?”

“They won’t grow unless people treat them right,” he answered. “There’s some women, those young giggly things with embroidery parasols, that think my flowers are ‘so attractive’ and that they can grow them to pin to the front of their ruffled white dresses. Much good poppies will do any one who tries to wear them! They droop and die in ten minutes and the sweet young things say ‘Oh, dear!’ and throw them away. And there are others who say my place here is ‘so original and quaint’ and they must have a corner in their gardens just like it, so they take the seeds away to plant them somewhere in the Middle West where the ground bakes as hard as iron and the hot air dries up the buds before they can open. No, poppies have to have cool earth to dig their toes into, and cool salt air to breathe; it’s sea breezes that put the colour into them, and a good wet fog is their meat and drink. Poor things, I hate to think of them off somewhere drooping and withering for a whiff of fresh salt wind.”

“Captain Saulsby,” said Billy gravely, “I do believe you care a lot for those flowers of yours. You are always saying you don’t, but I think I won’t believe you again. I can see by the very way you look at them that you love them.”

“No, can you?” exclaimed the old sailor in genuine surprise. “Why—why—maybe I do now, I never thought of it.” He looked about the garden as though suddenly seeing it in a new light. “I hated the whole place bitterly enough when I first knew I must stop here all the rest of my life, and my only wish was that the time might not be long. But I’ve worked and tended and watched over it for five years and—well, you are right. I have learned to love it and never knew. That’s a queer thing, now, isn’t it?”

“How glad you must be that it wasn’t sold,” Billy went on, “that all that trouble and worry is over for good.”

“I’m not so sure of its being for good,” the old captain returned reflectively; “the fellow got clear away, and as long as he’s still free to make trouble, there will be mischief brewing. And there’s plenty more like him where he came from, too. No, there is still danger for Appledore Island, I am sure of that.”

“Do you think that German clock-maker could have helped him to get away?” Billy asked. “I have wondered a good deal if they didn’t have something to do with each other.” “There’s Germans and Germans,” the old man answered. “I put a lot of faith in Johann Happs, but the trouble of it is you can’t always tell. I think a time is coming, though, coming pretty soon, when things will show plainly which kind of German is which. But I may be wrong.”

Their talk was interrupted here by a visitor, not a summer tourist this time, but a person of a very different kind. It was Harvey Jarreth, fresh and smiling and sure of himself again, in spite of his unpleasant experience with the naval authorities and his weekend visit to Appledore’s jail. There had been no evidence to bring against him as to his transactions with the prosperous stranger, so that he had been set free after giving many promises that he would be more careful in future. His reputation for shrewdness had suffered greatly for a little time; but as the weeks passed and people began to forget the disturbance that they had never quite understood, Harvey Jarreth began to come into his own again.

He was jauntily dressed as ever today, in the light grey clothes that made his sandy complexion still sandier, and that by their extreme of fashion showed just how many years they lagged behind the present mode. His straw hat was a little frayed and battered at the edges, but he wore it at just such a cheerful angle as when Billy had first seen him.

“Well, Captain,” he began genially, “that was a queer business about that city friend of mine, wasn’t it? And the joke of it is that it looks just now as though you had been right about him. That’s pretty funny. Ha, ha!”

“It will go right on being just as big a joke,” returned the Captain sourly. “You had better go home and practice laughing at it ............