People came in from all around to read Cap'n Abe's letter and to congratulate Cap'n Amazon and Louise that the Curlew was safe. The captain took the matter as coolly as he did everything else.
Louise watched him, trying to fathom his manner and the mystery about him. Yet, when the solution of the problem was developed, she was most amazed by the manner in which her eyes were opened.
Supper time was approaching, and the cooler evening breeze blew in through the living-room windows. Relieved for the moment from his store tasks, Cap'n Amazon appeared, rubbing his hands cheerfully, and briskly approached old Jerry's cage as he chirruped to the bird.
"Well! well! And how's old Jerry been to-day?" Louise heard him say.
Then: "Hi-mighty! What's this?"
Louise glanced in from the kitchen. She saw him standing before the cage, his chin sunk on his breast, the tears trickling down his mahogany face.
That hard, stern visage, with its sweeping piratical mustache and the red bandana above it, was a most amazing picture of grief.
"Oh! What is it?" cried the girl, springing to his side.
He pointed with shaking index finger to the bird within the cage.
"Dead!" he said brokenly, "Dead, Niece Louise! Poor old Jerry's dead—and him and me shipmates for so many, many years."
"Oh!" screamed the girl, grasping his arm. "You are Cap'n Abe!"