their real and ethical right to all that they might gather from the tide, be it cod, caplin, herrings or the timbers and freights of wrecked ships.  He saw that a wreck, like a good run of fish, was a thing to profit by thankfully and give praise to the saints for; but he held that no gift of God was to be gathered in violence.  In the early years of his work he had heard rumors and seen indications of things that had fired him with a righteous fury and pity—­rumors and hints of mariners struggling landward only to be killed like so many seals as they reached the hands to which they had looked for succor.  The poor savages who had committed such crimes as this had at first failed to understand his fury and disgust; but with his tongue and his strong arms he had driven into their hearts the fear of Holy Church and of the Reverend Patrick McQueen.  Even the wildest and dullest members of his far-scattered flock learned in time that life was sacred—­even the life of a half-dead stranger awash in the surf.  They even learned to refrain from stripping and breaking up a wrecked or grounded vessel that was still manned by a protesting crew; and with the fear of the good priest in their hearts (even though he was a hundred miles away), they would do their best to bring the unfortunate mariners safely ashore and then share the vessel with the hungry sea.

That even a deserted or unpeopled wreck should be common property may not seem right to some people; but it seemed right to Father McQueen—­and surely he should know what was right and what was wrong!  It was sometime about the date of this story that a missionary of another and perhaps less broad and human creed than Father McQueen’s wrote to his bishop in the spring, “Thanks to God and two wrecks we got through the winter without starving.”

Father McQueen did not hurry away from Chance Along.  Six months had passed since his last visit and so he felt that this section of his flock demanded both time and attention.  His way of knowing his people was by learning their outward as well as their inner lives, their physical and also their spiritual being.  He was not slow to see and understand the skipper’s ambitions and something of his methods.  He read Black Dennis Nolan for a strong, active, masterful and relentless nature.  He heard of Foxey Jack Quinn’s departure and of the fight at the edge of the cliff that had preceded it.  He heard also that Quinn had robbed the skipper before departing; but exactly what he had robbed him of he could not learn.  He questioned Dennis himself and had a lesson in the art of evasion.  He found it no great task to comfort the woman and children of the fugitive Jack.  They were well fed and had the skipper’s word that they should never lack food and clothing.  He was not surprised to learn from the deserted wife that the man had been a bully at home as well as abroad.  For his own part, he had never thought very highly of Foxey Jack Quinn.  He visited every cabin in the harbor, and those that sheltered old and sick he visited many times.  He was keenly interested in the work that the skipper was doing among the rocks in front of the harbor, and did not fail to point out persistently and authoritatively that chains and ropes designed to facilitate the saving of freights would also facilitate the saving of human lives.  The skipper agreed with him respectfully.