foreigners. She had been a Portuguese vessel, and although the Cape
Codder, then, as now, was opposed to "foreigners," refuge was
extended to the people saved from the big wreck.

Near the straggling settlement at the cove a group of shacks had
sprung up to shelter the "Portygees" from the stranded-vessel. As
her bones were slowly engulfed in the marching sands, through the
decades that passed, the people who had come ashore from the big
wreck had waxed well to do, bred families of strong, handsome, brown
men and black-eyed, glossy-haired women who flashed their white
teeth in smiles that were almost startling. Now one end of "the
port," as the village of Big Wreck Cove was usually called by the
natives, was known as Portygee Town.

Wreckers' Head boasted of several homes of retired shipmasters and
owners of Cap'n Ira's ilk. These ancient sea dogs, on such a day as
this, were unfailingly found "walking the poop" of their front
yards, or wherever they could take their diurnal exercise,
binoculars or spyglass in hand, their vision more often fixed
seaward than on the land.

Cap'n Ira had scarcely put the glass to his eye for a first squint
at his "position" when he exclaimed:

"I swan! That's a master-pretty sight. I ain't seen a prettier in
many a day. Come here and look at this craft, Prudence."

She hurried to join him. Her motions when she was on her feet were
birdlike, yet there was the same unsteadiness in her walk as in
Cap'n Ira's. Only, at the moment, he did not see it, for his eye was