



Produced by Donald Lainson and D. A. Alexander





 CAP'N WARREN'S WARDS

 By Joseph C. Lincoln

 Author of "The Depot Master," "The Woman Haters,"
 "The Postmaster," "Cap'n Erie,"
 "Mr. Pratt," etc.

 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
 BY EDMUND FREDERICK

 A. L. BURT COMPANY
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK




 COPYRIGHT 1911, BY
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

 _Published October, 1911_

 Printed in the United States of America




[Illustration: "Captain Warren had risen from his chair and was facing
her." [Page 48]]




CAP'N WARREN'S WARDS




CHAPTER I


"Ostable!" screamed the brakeman, opening the car door and yelling his
loudest, so as to be heard above the rattle of the train and the shriek
of the wind; "Ostable!"

The brakeman's cap was soaked through, his hair was plastered down on
his forehead, and, in the yellow light from the car lamps, his wet nose
glistened as if varnished. Over his shoulders the shiny ropes of rain
whipped and lashed across the space between the cars. The windows
streamed as each succeeding gust flung its miniature freshet against
them.

The passengers in the car--there were but four of them--did not seem
greatly interested in the brakeman's announcement. The red-faced person
in the seat nearest the rear slept soundly, as he had done for the
last hour and a half. He had boarded the train at Brockton, and, after
requesting the conductor not to "lemme me git by Bayport, Bill," at
first favored his fellow travelers with a song and then sank into
slumber.

The two elderly men sitting together on the right-hand side of the car
droned on in their apparently endless Jeremiad concerning the low price
of cranberries, the scarcity of scallops on the flats, the reasons why
the fish weirs were a failure nowadays, and similar cheerful topics. And
in his seat on the left, Mr. Atwood Graves, junior partner in the New
York firm of Sylvester, Kuhn and Graves, lawyers, stirred uneasily on
the lumpy plush cushion, looked at his watch, then at the time-table in
his hand, noted that the train was now seventy-two minutes late, and
for at least the fifteenth time mentally cursed the railway company, the
whole of Cape Cod from Sandwich to Provincetown, and the fates which had
brought him there.

The train slowed down, in a jerky, hiccoughy sort of way, and crept
on till the car in which Mr. Graves was seated was abreast the lighted
windows of a small station, where it stopped. Peering through the
water-streaked pane at the end of his seat, the lawyer saw dim
silhouettes of uncertain outline moving about. They moved with provoking
slowness. He felt that it would be joy unspeakable to rush out there and
thump them into animation. The fact that the stately Atwood Graves even
thought of such an undignified proceeding is sufficient indication of
his frame of mind.

Then, behind the door which the brakeman, after announcing the station,
had closed again, sounded a big laugh. The heartiness of it grated on
Mr. Graves's nerves. What idiot could laugh on such a night as this
aboard a train over an hour late?

The laugh was repeated. Then the door was flung briskly open, and a
man entered the car. He was a big man, broad-shouldered, inclined to
stoutness, wearing a cloth cap with a visor, and a heavy ulster, the
collar of which was turned up. Through the gap between the open ends of
the collar bristled a short, grayish beard. The face above the beard and
below the visor was sunburned, with little wrinkles about the eyes and
curving lines from the nostrils to the corners of the mouth. The upper
lip was shaved, and the eyebrows were heavy and grayish black. Cap,
face, and ulster were dripping with water.

The newcomer paused in the doorway for an instant, evidently to add the
finishing touch to a conversation previously begun.

"Well, I tell you, Ezra," he called, over his shoulder, "if it's too
deep to wade, maybe I can swim. Fat floats, they tell me, and Abbie says
I'm gettin' fleshier every day. So long."

He closed the door and, smiling broadly, swung down the aisle. The pair
of calamity prophets broke off their lament over the declining fisheries
and greeted him almost jovially.

"Hello, Cap'n!" cried one. "What's the south shore doin' over here in
this flood?"

"What's the matter, Cap'n?" demanded the other. "Broke loose from your
moorin's, have you? Did you ever see such a night in your life?"

The man in the ulster shook hands with each of his questioners, removing
a pair of wet, heavy leather gloves as he did so.

"Don't know's I ever did, Dan," he answered. "Couldn't see much of this
one but its color--and that's black. I come over this mornin' to
attend to some business at the court-house--deeds to some cranberry bog
property I just bought