CHAPTER I<br> UNREQUITED LOVE <b>'Yew don' seem ter keer any gret amount fer me, Pris.'<br> The speaker was a young man of twenty or thereabouts, whose loosely jointed frame showed, even under the shapely rig of homespun, consisting of just a shirt and pants, a promise to the observant eye that he would presently develop into a man of massive mould. He lay upon the stubbly ground, his head resting on one arm, looking wistfully up into the face of a girl about his own age. His clean-shaven face wore that keenness of outline so characteristic of the true Yankee blend in which the broad Saxon or Frisian features seem to have been modified by the sharp facial angles of the indigenous owners of the soil. But in the softness of his grey eyes a close observer would have foreseen a well of trouble springing up for their owner on behalf of others. It was the face of the typical burden-bearer.<br> In her face, on the other hand, there were evident manifestations of discontent and weariness of restraint. A healthy, pleasant countenance enough, with dark brown eyes and curling hair, well-shaped nose and short upper lip just spotted with freckles. The eyes looked, however, as if they could harden and grow black upon occasion, while the square chin and firm curve of the shut mouth told a plain tale of self-will. There was just a touch of petulance in the quick movement of her head as she replied:<br> 'You're so exactin', Rube. An' surely you wouldn't want me to be a hypocrite an' gush over you when I don't feel a bit like it. The honest fact is that I like you better than anybody I've ever seen, but you know I haven't seen many people at all; and as for the men folks about here, they're almost as dull and stupid as the cattle themselves. An' more than that, Rube, I'm afraid I don't know what this love is that you seem to be et up with, an' I'm not going to say I do to please anybody.'</b><br> =========================================================================== CHAPTER XX<br> THE CYCLONE <b>Although all hands had dispersed and half of them were free to seek their berths, they could none of them go below. A great awe, not to say fear, was upon them, for none of them save the skipper and some of the officers had ever witnessed the upheaval of the sea and down-pressing of the heavens which were now imminent, and the coming thereof exercised a fearful fascination upon them. They huddled in groups, only whispering an occasional word, and waited for they knew not what. Yet all had a feeling that it must be the Trump of Doom. As yet the wind had not attained any great force, but the motion of the ship was exceedingly uneasy, for the ocean is so responsive to the power of the wind that long before a gale which is somewhere raging has reached a ship, she will often be most violently tossed by big waves coming sweeping towards her, and this without any barometrical warning that can be noticed. Nay, it sometimes happens that after several hours of anxious waiting for the expected gale, with almost every stitch in the ship close furled, the restless sea will again quiet down, the filminess will disappear from the sky, and serene weather will once more prevail: the gale has either blown itself out or has by a very well understood meteorological event been diverted from its original course into a totally new one.</b>