SCOOTSY'S EPITHET Lying on Barnegat Beach, within sight of the House of Refuge and Fogarty's cabin, was the hull of a sloop which had been whirled in one night in a southeaster, with not a soul on board, riding the breakers like a duck, and landing high and dry out of the hungry clutch of the surf-dogs.

She was light at the time and without ballast, and lay stranded upright on her keel.

All attempts by the beach-combers to float her had proved futile; they had stripped her of her standing rigging and everything else of value, and had then abandoned her.

Only the evenly balanced hull was left, its bottom timbers broken and its bent keelson buried in the sand.

This hulk little Tod Fogarty, aged ten, had taken possession of; particularly the after-part of the hold, over which he had placed a trusty henchman armed with a cutlass made from the hoop of a fish barrel.