my small cruiser pulled her off easily. In the morning the mysterious
stranger lay at anchor in the cove round the corner, as quiet as
a China duck.

"Of course we advertised in the coast newspapers, giving a description
of the boat--'came ashore,' etc.

"Three days later a boy about thirteen years old turned up at
Winterport. He came from a village at the northeast corner of the
bay forty miles away. He guessed the boat was his father's, but
couldn't say for sure until he had seen it. So he came down to
the point and identified it beyond a doubt. He told his story very
simply.

"The boat belonged to his father, who was a widow-man with only one
child. He used the boat for fishing, and sometimes he took Johnny
with him, sometimes not. On the trips without the boy he used to
stay out longer, sometimes a week or ten days. About a week ago
he had started out on one of these trips with two other men. They
had a dory in tow. They hadn't come back. Johnny had seen the piece
in the paper. Here was the boat, for sure, but no dory. As for the
rest of the story--well, that was all that Johnny had to tell us
about it--the mystery was as far away as ever.

"He was a fine, sturdy little chap, with tanned face and clear
blue eyes. He was rather shaken by his experience, of course, but
he wouldn't cry--not for the world. We were glad to take him in
for the night, while we verified his story by telegraph. It seemed
the boat was practically his only inheritance, and the first question
he asked, after we had gone over it, was how much we wanted him to