The skipper's faith in his grandmother and Mary was great. He soon
schooled himself to stay away from the house for hours at a time, and
give at least half his attention to the work of impressing the men with
his mastery, and getting out lumber for the little church which Father
McQueen was to build in June, on the barrens behind and above Chance
Along. The men felt and knew his touch of mastery. They felt that this
work at church-building was sure to lift any curse and devilment from
the harbor, if such things had really been, and establish the skipper's
good luck for all time. Dick Lynch, who still walked feebly, with a
bandage about his head, was in bad repute with all of them, and more
especially with the blood-kin of the young man whom he had knifed in the
drunken fight over the gold. But the youth who had been knifed, Pat
Brennen by name, was in a fair way to recover from the wound, thanks to
the skipper's care and the surgical dressings from the _Royal
William's_ medicine-chest. So they worked well, ate well, clothed
themselves in warm garments made by their womenfolk from the goods saved
from the last wreck, and said with their undependable tongues, from the
shallows of their undependable hearts, that Black Dennis Nolan was a
great man and a terrible. The spirit of distrust and revolt was dead--or
sound asleep, at least.

The hot poison of the fever in Flora Lockhart's blood was drawn after
days of ceaseless care and innumerable doses of quinine and brews of
herbs and roots; but it left behind it a weakness of spirit and body,
and a dangerous condition of chest and throat. Mother Nolan and Mary
Kavanagh saw that the fight was only half won, and neither of them laid
aside their arms for a moment, though they changed their tactics. Now
the fire in the chimney was kept roaring more fiercely than ever,
bottles of hot water were kept always in the bed, the blankets were
heated freely, and hot broth and steaming spirits were given in place of