cian?"

Lucian was so much better, he told her, that both brothers had been
returned to their cabin stateroom.

"Then you've just put a new case into the texas!"

The commodore smiled. "Yes, from the freight deck."

"Freight--humph! That's the lower deck," she reminiscently said, turning
to Hugh. "Who is it? Is it--Otto?"

But Hugh's face wore its absurd iron look, which had its usual effect on
her. The old man spoke: "Will Miss Ramsey do us all a favor; one that
will help the play?"

"Whew, yes! That'll help everything. What is it?"

"It's to make no mention of the new case to any one."

"Till the close of the evening," put in the Gilmores, and Ramsey saw
that they knew. Yet----

"All right," she said. "Oh, I know who it is." She tossed her curls.
"It's Otto's mother." But both tone and glance lacked conviction. The
commodore left them.

Meantime the mate was amusing his half of the
company.

"How much wood," he was repeating. "I as't that myself once 'pon a time.
D'dy'ever hear the answer? They tell the yarn on lots o' loons but I 'uz
the real one 'n' I got the answer f'm Gid Hayle aboard the old
_Admiral_."

The names caught Ramsey's ear and drew her gaze. "That _Admiral_,"
continued the mate, "could eat wood like a harrikin. Says Hayle to me:
'Well, that depends on yo' boat 'n' yo' wood. With the right boat 'n'
the right wood--oak, ash, hickory--y'ought to burn f'm sixty to sevemty
cord' a day. But ef yo' feed'n' this boat cottonwood, why, yo' simply
shovellin' shavin's into hell.'"

Ramsey looked sad. Weary of contrasts unflattering to her men-folks, she
glanced from the refined actor to the elegant old commodore, blushed to
the player's wife and accepted her embracing arm. "Yass," pursued the
mate, "s'e jest so: 'Yo' simply shovellin' shavin's----'"

It was not Hugh's motion that cut him short but Ramsey's voice as with a
flash she said: "Go on. I don't care! If pop-a said it it's so!"

A raindrop wet her cheek. From the pilot-house Ned, as he pulled the
wheel over to chase the hardpressed _Antelope_ westward into Bunch's
Cut-off, warningly drawled that they were about to run into a shower. At
his side Watson's cub was letting down the storm board. A blue-black
cloud overhanging the green head of the cut-off had suddenly widened
across all that quarter and turned leaden gray. A writhing wind struck
the boat fairly in front. The waters ruffled, flattened, and seemed to
run faster. On an island c