A Girl and Her Debt of Honor

"But I reckon we'll talk it all over after we get to the station,"
said the master, kindly. "There may be something in it that I don't
understand."

"There's considerable in it that I don't understand myself, just now,
but I'm going to find out," declared Captain Mayo.

They placed Ahpa Marston in the care of the station captain's wife as
soon as they were safely on shore in the inlet. Fortunate chance had
sent the woman to the station that day on a visit to her husband.

Captain Downs, fed and warmed, watched the new arrivals eat beside the
kitchen stove and listened to the story Mayo had for him.

The bedraggled cat lapped milk, protected from the resentful jealousy of
the station's regular feline attaché by the one-eyed cook.

And afterward, closeted with Captain Downs and the station captain, Mayo
went over his case.

"I must say you seem to be pretty hard and fast ashore in mighty
sloppy water," commented the coastguard captain. "It isn't my especial
business--but what do you propose to do?"

"Go to New York and take what they're going to hand me, I suppose. I
ought to have stayed there and faced the music. I have put myself in bad
by running away. But I was rattled."

"The best of us get rattled," said the host, consolingly. "I'm not a
policeman, sheriff, or detective, mate. I'll report this case as Captain
Downs and so many souls saved from the schooner Alden. You'd better
trot along up to the city and face 'em as a man should. I'll rig you out
in some of my clothes. Your old friend, Wass, meant well by rushing
you away, but I've always found that in a man's fight you can't do much
unless you're close enough to t'other fellow to hit him when he reaches
for you."