At dawn, however, there came a noise which roused the newcomer to Wreckers’ Head.  She awoke with a start.  Something had clattered upon her window sill, that window looking toward the north.  She sat upright in bed to listen.  The clatter was repeated.  In the dim, gray light she saw several tiny objects bounding into the room.

She scrambled out of the high four-poster and shrugged her feet into slippers.  She crept to the window, holding the nightgown close at the neck.  She felt one of the tiny objects under the soft sole of her slipper and stooped to secure it.  It was a pebble.

More pebbles rattled on the window sill.  She stepped forward then with considerable bravery, and looked down.  What she saw at first startled her.  A tall, misty, gray object stood below the window, something quite ghostly in appearance, something which moved in the dim light.

“Why, what—­”

Then the thing stamped and blew a faint whinny.  She saw a pale, long face raised and two pointed ears twitching above it.

“A horse!”

A darker figure rose up suddenly from before the strange animal.

“Ida May!”

“Why, Captain Latham!”

“Cat’s foot!” exclaimed the captain of the Seamew.  “I thought I’d never wake you up without disturbing the old folks.  No need to ask you if you rested well.”

“Oh, gloriously!” whispered the girl, beaming down upon him, but keeping out of the full range of his vision.

“Sorry I had to wake you, but I’m due at the wharf right now to see that the hands get those clams stowed aboard.  We want to get away on the morning tide.  I brought Queenie home and thought I’d better tell you.”

“Queenie?”

“The Queen of Sheba, you know.  I was telling you about Cap’n Ira’s old mare.”

“Oh, yes!  Wait.  I’ll dress and be right down.”

“That’s all right,” said Tunis.  “I’ll wait.”

She scurried into the clothes she had laid out before going to bed.  In five minutes she crept down the stairs into the kitchen and out of the back door.  Tunis, holding the sleepy mare by her rope bridle, met her between the kitchen ell and the barn.

“You look as bright as a new penny,” he chuckled.  “But it’s early yet for you to be astir.  I’ll put Queenie in her stable and show you where the feed is.  Aunt Prue will like to have her back.  She sets great store by the old mare.  She won’t be much bother to you, Ida May.”

“Nothing will ever be a bother to me here, Captain Latham,” said the girl cheerfully.

“That’s the way to talk,” he said, with satisfaction.  “Just you keep on that tack, Ida May, and things will go swimmingly, I’ve no doubt.”

In ten minutes he was briskly on his way to the town.  The girl watched him from the back stoop as long as he was to be seen in the morning mist.  Then she went back into the house, made a more careful toilet, and when Cap’n Ira came hobbling into the kitchen an hour later breakfast was in preparation on the glowing stove.