As a usual thing, she was not a person given to uncertainty, in either manner or speech.  Her somewhat haughty glance, her high-arched nose, her thin lips, all showed decision and a scorn of other people’s opinions and wishes.  But at this moment she was plainly nonplused.

“There—­there doesn’t seem to be anybody about,” she faltered.

“Oh, go right into the store, ma’am.  Cap’n Abe’s somewheres around.  He always is.”

Thus encouraged by the driver the woman stalked up the store steps.  She was not a ponderous woman, but she was tall and carried considerable flesh.  She could carry this well, however, and did.  Her traveling dress and hat were just fashionable enough to be in the mode, but in no extreme.  This well-bred, haughty, but perspiring woman approached the entrance to Cap’n Abe’s store in a spirit of frank disapproval.

On the threshold she halted with an audible gasp, indicating amazement.  Her glance swept the interior of the store with its strange conglomeration of goods for sale—­on the shelves the rows of glowingly labeled canned goods, the blue papers of macaroni, the little green cartons of fishhooks; the clothing hanging in groves, the rows and rows of red mittens; tiers of kegs of red lead, barrels of flour, boxes of hardtack; hanks of tarred ground-line, coils of several sizes of cordage, with a small kedge anchor here and there.  It was not so much a store as it was a warehouse displaying many articles the names and uses for which the lady did not even know.

The wondrous array of goods in Cap’n Abe’s store did not so much startle the visitor, as the figure that rose from behind the counter, where he was stooping at some task.

She might be excused her sudden cry, for Cap’n Amazon was an apparition to shock any nervous person.  The bandana he wore seemed, if possible, redder than usual this morning; his earrings glistened; his long mustache seemed blacker and glossier than ever.  As he leaned characteristically upon the counter, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, the throat-latch of his shirt open, he did not give one impression of a peaceful storekeeper, to say the least.

“Mornin’, ma’am,” said Cap’n Amazon, not at all embarrassed.  “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

“You—­you are not Captain Silt?” the visitor almost whispered in her agitation.

“Yes, ma’am; I am.”

“Captain Abram Silt?”

“No, ma’am; I ain’t.  I’m Cap’n Am’zon, his brother.  What can I do for you?” he repeated.  The explanation of his identity may have been becoming tedious; at least, Cap’n Amazon gave it grimly.

“Is—­is my niece, Louise Grayling, here?” queried the lady, her voice actually trembling, her gaze glued to the figure behind the counter.

“’Hem!” said the captain, clearing his throat.  “Who did you say you was, ma’am?”

“I did not say,” the visitor answered stiffly enough now.  “I asked you a question.”