I had n't no means o' tellin' for sure that you was any diff'rent from the others"—
"Others!" Archer exclaimed, hotly and yet with wonder. "There are n't any others. That's a lie. There never were any."
The blue eyes looked squarely at him, deep, with a weary brightness.
"Oh, yes, the' was," the fisherman replied. "The' was one other. Wait!" he added sternly. "I'm slow at these things, but you 'll ketch my drift. It's eight years that I 've kep' an eye on her. Beaky was round after her. She never knowed it. The' was a girl ashore, over in town, he got after, that— Never mind. That was n't goin' to happen here, if I c'd stop it. I 've licked Beaky twice; and so long's he was on the island, I never left it,—never, for all his old man ordered me off. Don't ye see? When she'd go round down there all alone, playin',—God, I 've knowed 'er longer 'n you, anyway,—or up on the head—why, I was always round, spyin' out. Why, man, that's only why I stayed here." He looked down and fumbled with the dirty cloth lining of his
