As the days passed on Winn noticed that more and more interest came to be felt in the Rockhaven Granite Company and his management. And when the first schooner he had chartered to load with quarried stone came into the harbor and alongside the little wharf in front of the quarry, almost a breeze of excitement seemed to ripple through the village. The women whose husbands were working there came down to see the loading, children wanted to climb aboard the vessel, and even the Rev. Jason Bush spent hours watching the massive blocks as they were swung on board. Old Jess Hutton left his store, and the people to help themselves, every afternoon, and perched on a convenient outpost, looked on. Only Mona kept away, and when one evening Winn asked her why, she colored slightly and replied, "It hurts me a little to see that old ledge Uncle Jess used to own being blasted and carried off."

It wasn't her only reason, though a part of it; the rest was of such a nature that Mona kept it locked in her breast. For the good natives of Rockhaven, as well as others, had noticed that Winn always walked with her going and coming from church and had commented upon it, and Mona had heard of their comments.

Winn was not her lover as yet, she felt, and not likely to be. She could not and would not avoid walking and talking with him, but she could avoid seeming to pursue him over to the quarry. It was all due to a remark Mrs. Moore had made in a neighborly way.

"I like Mr. Hardy, right well," she had said one morning when Mona brought in a fresh bunch of June roses and asked that she put them in his room, "an' if I was a young gal like you, I'd set my cap for him. It looks as if you had, a-bringin' him fresh posies, an' if ye keep it up the right way, an' don't let him make too free with ye, ye kin. It 'ud be a great catch for ye if ye did."

After that Mona brought no more flowers for Winn's room, but her mother, observant ever, and world-wise in a way, did so, and Winn never knew the difference.

When the second load of stone had been shipped, and the July sun had begun to shrivel the scanty grass in Mrs. Moore's dooryard, her two sons sailed into the harbor one day to spend a Sunday there. They were browned by the sea-winds and redolent of its crisp odors, and when Winn came back from the quarry at supper time he found them there.

"I hear ye're blowin' up an' carryin' off our island," said David, the oldest, on being introduced, "an' it's a good thing. The rock ain't o' much account an' most on't is in the way. Thar ain't room 'nough 'longside o' the water here to dry fish, let alone settin' up houses."

And that Saturday evening, when Winn, as usual, repaired to the store of Jess Hutton to pay off his men, this swarthy sailor was sitting upon the doorstep of Mrs. Hutton's home, chewing tobacco vigorously and talking to Mona.

The next day, too, dressed in a suit of new clothes that, to use a slang phrase, "could be heard across the island," he boldly and with an air of proprietorship walked beside her to church and seated himself in the same pew.

Winn, who had never taken this liberty, and who sat with Mrs. Moore just to the rear, watched Mona industriously and noticed that once when the young fisherman leaned over to whisper she edged away. All that day not once did Winn exchange a word with her except the "good morning" that was his early greeting, and when evening came he once more lit his cigar and strolled up Norse Hill to commune with himself, for the sight of that swaggering son of Neptune making himself agreeable to Mona was not pleasant. In this respect men are all alike, and whether they want a woman or not, a shadow of the old instinct that existed among the cave dwellers is latent.

It was two days after when the brothers sailed away, and by that time Winn had decided that no matter how interested young Moore was in Mona, she reciprocated no part of it.

And then another, and totally unexpected success in his new life came to him, and that from Jess.

"I've been layin' back 'n' watchin' how things was goin' on," observed that philosopher one evening when they were alone in the store, "an' how ye have behaved yerself, an' I'm goin' to be plain spoken with ye. In the fust place I've made up my mind ye're a good, honest and well-meanin' young man, an' if 'twas goin' ter help ye any, an' if ye are likely to make it yer home here a year or two, I'd buy a few shares of this stock jist ter show ye 'n' yer folks Rockhaven appreciates the wages ye're payin' out. I'm goin' ter ask ye a few questions, an' if matters is all right, I'll take five hundred on't an' mebbe I cud git Cap'n Moore an' Cap'n Roby n' one or two others to buy a leetle. They would if they knew I had."

To say that Winn was surprised was to put it mildly.

"I will gladly answer any question you may ask, Mr. Hutton, and truthfully," he replied. "I know how you feel in regard to this enterprise and how much any one would hate to lose a dollar they invested in our stock. It is because of this that I have not so far asked a soul, not even you, to invest a cent with us, though we are ready and shall be glad to have you. As to how long I shall stay here, that is a matter over which I have no control. I am only a manager for the company. I own some of the stock and draw a fair salary, and if this quarry pays (and I shall do my best to make it) I may stay here for life."

"Is this here Weston wuth a good deal o' money," queried Jess in response, "an' what sort o' man is he reckoned in the city? Is he counted as square an' honest, or a sharper?"

"So far as I know," responded Winn, "he is an honorable business man; and although this quarrying company is like any other enterprise—a venture—I do not think Mr. Weston would have gone into it unless he felt sure of making money."

Jess asked a good many other questions which, with their answers, not being pertinent to the thread of this narrative, need not be quoted. When Winn left him that night, after he had gone over in detail all he knew regarding Weston & Hill and their business, it was with the feeling that he had conquered Rockhaven and its oracle without an effort. He little realized that a far more subtile influence than dividends had interested Jess Hutton, and a desire to conserve matters to the end that Mona might be made the happier, was the motive force that governed him.

"I've noticed," he said a little later to Mrs. Hutton, "that this young man sorter takes to Mona n' she kinder cottons to him. I think it 'ud be a good idee if ye'd jest caution her not to be free with him 'n' kinder hold herself off as it were. These city chaps have a winnin' way with 'em to a gal, n' I'd hate to see her git a heartache out on't." He did not tell Mrs. Hutton he had bought five hundred shares of Rockhaven stock and insisted that Winn also keep the matter a secret.

A week later Winn received the following missive from Jack Nickerson, only a portion of which it is necessary to quote.

"... I hear," he wrote, "that you have captured an island and are sending it here in shiploads according to the Market News (two clippings of which I enclose). They show the fine Italian hand of Weston or Simmons. I hope you are enjoying yourself and drawing your per annum with promptness and regularity. The street is growing curious as to what deep-laid scheme Weston & Hill are preparing to spring upon it, and Rockhaven stock is not as yet selling to any extent. I saw the gay and festive Weston out driving yesterday and Simmons was with him. They are a pair that will bear watching. I hope they won't play you for a tenderfoot in this new deal. Last week I took a run up to the mountain where Ethel Sherman and her mother are spending the summer. Ethel was, as might be expected, deep in a flirtation with a young idiot in golf clothes and hardly noticed me. Incidentally I heard that he was possible heir to millions."

"What an inveterate scoffer Jack is," was Winn's mental comment on this missive. "He sees no good motive in any one;" and then he re-read the long and flowery letter from Weston received the same time and congratulating him on his excellent work. Also notifying him they had as usual anticipated his pay-roll and expressed sufficient currency to meet it.

And of the two letters the one from Weston seemed to him just then to be honest and business-like, and Jack's as but the sneering of a confirmed cynic.

"They wouldn't be putting good money into this quarry if they did not see a safe and sure return," he thought, and then he took Ethel Sherman's letter that had been lying for weeks unanswered on his table and tore it into shreds.

A few days later he received instructions to make a present of fifty shares of stock to the minister of Rockhaven church, and to assure him that the Company donated it for the good of the cause and to show their cordial interest in the religious welfare of the island. And the Rev. Jason Bush, who never in his life owned more than the humble roof that sheltered him, and whose patient wife turned and dyed her raiment until worthless, marvelled much. And more than that, twenty-four hours had not passed ere every man, woman, and child on the island had been told it, for such unexpected, such astounding liberality seemed nothing short of a miracle.