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Handily?" queried Barbara Harding, with a wry smile, glancing about the deck of

the Halfmoon. "I cannot see that we are either through it handily or through it at

all. We have no masts, no canvas, no boats; and though I am not much of a

sailor, I can see that there is little likelihood of our effecting a landing on the

shore ahead either with or without boats---it looks most forbidding. Then the

wind has gone down, and when it comes up again it is possible that it will carry

us away from the land, or if it takes us toward it, dash us to pieces at the foot of

those frightful cliffs."

I see you are too good a sailor by far to be cheered by any questionable hopes,"

laughed Theriere; "but you must take the will into consideration--I only wished to

give you a ray of hope that might lighten your burden of apprehension. However,

honestly, I do think that we may find a way to make a safe landing if the sea

continues to go down as it has in the past two hours. We are not more than a

league from shore, and with the jury mast and sail that the men are setting under

Mr. Ward now we can work in comparative safety with a light breeze, which we

should have during the afternoon. There are few coasts, however rugged they may

appear at a distance, that do not offer some foothold for the wrecked mariner,

and I doubt not but that we shall find this no exception to the rule."

"I hope you are right, Mr. Theriere," said the girl, "and yet I cannot but feel that

my position will be less safe on land than it has been upon the Halfmoon. Once

free from the restraints of discipline which tradition, custom, and law enforce

upon the high seas there is no telling what atrocities these men will commit. To

be quite candid, Mr. Theriere, I dread a landing worse than I dreaded the dangers

of the storm through which we have just passed."

I think you have little to fear on that score, Miss Harding," said the Frenchman.

I intend making it quite plain that I consider myself your protector once we have

left the Halfmoon, and I can count on several of the men to support me. Even Mr.

Divine will not dare do otherwise. Then we can set up a camp of our own apart

from Skipper Simms and his faction where you will be constantly guarded until

succor may be obtained."

Barbara Harding had been watching the man's face as he spoke. The memory of

his consideration and respectful treatment of her during the trying weeks of her

captivity had done much to erase the intuitive feeling of distrust that had tinged

her thoughts of him earlier in their acquaintance, while his heroic act in

descending into the forecastle in the face of the armed and desperate Byrne had

thrown a glamour of romance about him that could not help but tend to fascinate

a girl of Barbara Harding's type. Then there was the look she had seen in his eyes

for a brief instant when she had found herself locked in his cabin on the occasion

that he had revealed to her Larry Divine's duplicity. That expression no red-

The Mucker