She ran ahead to pick up a shell or pebble that gleamed at the water's edge from a long way off. She escaped a wetting from the surf by a scant margin, and laughed delightedly at the chance she took. Back against the foot of the bluff certain brilliant flowers grew—fall blossoms that equaled any in Prudence Ball's garden—and the girl gathered these and arranged them in an attractive bouquet with a regard for color that delighted her companion.
They came, finally, in sight of a cabin back under the bank on the far side of the little cove, where once Tunis had reaped clams while Cap'n Ira and the Queen of Sheba made their unfortunate slide down the face of the bluff. The sea was so low now that Tunis could aid the girl across the mouth of the tiny inlet on the sand bar which defended it from the sea. There was but one channel over which she need leap with his help.
The cabin captivated Sheila, especially when she learned it was no longer occupied. It had a tight tin roof and a cement-pipe chimney with a cap to keep the rain out. The window sashes had been carried away and the door hung by a single hinge. However, the one-roomed cabin was otherwise tight and dry.
"Sometimes fishing parties from the port come around here and camp for a day or two," explained Tunis. "But Hosea Westcott used to live here altogether. Even in the winter. He caught his own fish and split and dried them; he dug clams and picked beach plums and sold them in town, or swapped them for what he needed. Sometimes the neighbors gave him a day's work."
"An old and lonely man, Tunis?" the girl murmured.
"That is what he was. All his immediate family was gone. So, when he fell ill one winter and one of the coast guards found him here almost starved and helpless, they took him away to the poor farm."
They went on around the end of the headland and walked up the beach toward the port. Before they reached the path by which they intended to mount to the summit of Wreckers' Head, they observed another couple going in the same direction, following the edge of the water on the firm strand. The woman was dressed in such brilliant hues that she could be mistaken for nobody but a resident of Portygee Town.
"That is the daughter of Pareta, who brought up your trunk when you came here, Ida May," said Tunis carelessly.
"But do you see who the man is?" she said, with some surprise. "It is your cousin."
"'Rion? So it is. Well," he added rather scornfully, "no accounting for tastes. She's a decent-enough girl, I guess, but we don't mix much with the Portygees. Although most of them are all right folks, at that. But fooling around those girls sometimes starts trouble, as 'Rion ought to know by this time."