The Argosy, August 1914 — page 39: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

NOBODY LOVES A LOSER. sometimes it’s helped. ‘This one was helped.” * Why, what do you mean? How could you tell?” she cried. ‘The needle was all right. What happened was that the disk had been twisted around? ”’ ‘The disk? The face of the com- pass?” “So that north wasn’t north any longer, and south was something else. That couldn’t happen of itself.” “ But, grandfather,” she began, and stopped as the enormity of the thing dawned on her. “T know, girl,” he said. “ It means that if some one was out in a fog rely- ing on that compass to get back to land again, th’ chances would be a hundred to one against them ever seeing home any more. It’s murder pure and sim- ple, that’s what it is.”’ ‘ How dreadful! ” the girl exclaimed with a little shudder in her voice. ‘Who could have done it?” “T don’t know that, Jess,” Captain Zed replied. “ I wouldn’t believe there was anybody in the world mean enough to try to turn a trick like that, but there’s how it is. Anyway, we won't leave the compass in th’ Polly Ann’s locker any more. [’ve brought it here and put it up there on the clock shelf when you want it. And don’t you worry about it none. I just told you so that you’d be careful.” The girl remained silent, and pres- ently Captain Zed arose and lumbered off to bed. Then Jack fell asleep in his turn. He had forgotten by morning what he had overheard, and perhaps would not have thought of it again but that the sight of the compass-box on the shelf reminded him. Curiosity spurred him on to ask for an explanation. “It’s very queer,’ Jessica admitted. “{ don’t know at all who did it. If I knew I wouldn’t let the matter rest with talking about it. You say you are a sailor, so you understand what it means to have a compass in error.” “But you were saying something 29 about being sorry for having come to Barratry Island to fish,” Jack remind- ed her. “It’s none of my business, to be sure.”’ ; ~ tts no secret,” fessica—fepied. “Grandfather and I are from the mainland—from New Galilee. All of the men in grandfather’s fishing gang but one are from the mainland. “The Barratry Islanders boast that they never let a mainlander fish off the island. Grandfather would not have come here to fish if it hadn't been that he took over these shanties for a debt. He is a poor man, and in order to get anything out of the debt, as long as he couldn’t sell them, he decided to use them himself. “A man named Merton Potter— they call him ‘ Buck’ Potter because he is so big and strong—had been living here for the past two or three seasons. Grandfather tried to get him to buy, and when he refused asked him to pay rent. But Potter would not do that, either. : “Instead, he told grandfather that he would keep on using the outfit and defied him to put him out. When grandfather brought his traps and boats over here and took possession, Potter was furious. He swore he would never let grandfather fish off Barratry. “If it were only Potter alone, it wouldn’t be worth a moment’s thought. The trouble is he merely ex- presses the sentiments of the islanders. They claim to believe that the fish in these waters are their exclusive prop- erty, which nobody else may share. ‘That is why I am afraid of trouble. There has been a little already; One of our men—Elmer Trask—got into a fight with some islanders at Carroll's saloon over in the summer settlement and was beaten up so badly that grand- father had to send him back home, so he is a man short. But that wasn’t any- thing. Elmer had no business to be in the saloon. “This affair of the compass, how- ever, is a serious thing. I can’t under- CORMICLOO® S (C@)