interested in anything that interested his boy. "I'll have the woods
boss get out a nice young cedar with, say, a twelve-inch butt, and
we'll make it into a flagpole."

"If we're going to do the job navy-fashion, we ought to fire a sunrise
and sunset gun," Donald suggested with all the enthusiasm of his
sixteen years.

"Well, I think we can afford that, too, Donald."

Thus it came about that the little brass cannon was installed on its
concrete base on the cliff. And when the flagpole had been erected,
old Caleb Brent came up one day, built a little mound of smooth,
sea-washed cobblestones round the base, and whitewashed them.
Evidently he was a prideful little man, and liked to see things done
in a seamanlike manner. And presently it became a habit with The Laird
to watch night and morning, for the little pin-prick of color to
flutter forth from the house on the Sawdust Pile, and if his own
colors did not break forth on the instant and the little cannon boom
from the cliff, he was annoyed and demanded an explanation.




III


Hector McKaye and his close-mouthed general manager, Andrew Daney,
were the only persons who knew the extent of The Laird's fortune. Even
their knowledge was approximate, however, for The Laird disliked to