lose abeam thousands of young cottonwoods, a
mantle of unbroken verdure, bent low, paled, reeled, darkened, and
whipped. Dead ahead, a flash of lightning dropped from zenith to
sky-line, stood blindingly quivering, and scarcely had vanished when the
thunder cracked to split the ear.

"Scoot, ladies," said the mate, "or in three shakes you'll be as wet as
the river!" A single glance up the stream--though Ramsey must needs take
a double one--showed the rain coming, so near and so dense that not a
sign of the _Antelope_ was visible. The company fled, some to a larboard
stair, some to a starboard. Hugh and Ramsey suddenly missed the
Gilmores, the Gilmores missed them, each pair turned to find the other,
the lashing rain leaped down upon them as if they were all it had come
for, and with words lost in a second thunder-clap the mate threw open
the captain's room, pressed them in, and began to dry them with a
whisk-broom. The captain, he said, was below. "Off watch didn't mean off
watch to John Courteney."

"Nor to Gideon Hayle," prompted Ramsey, and while he ha-haed a cordial
assent she asked: "Whereabouts below is he--Captain Courteney?" But the
mate had turned away and she asked Hugh: "Where's your father? What's he
doing?" Her thought was still on the unmentionable new case.

"I'll tell you," said Hugh in the low voice she liked so well. "Will you
look at the river with me?"

He felt her responsive nod and smile even after they had moved to the
front window farthest from their three seniors and stood gazing out into
the beautiful tempest. Both wind and downpour had somewhat slackened
their fury. A bit nearer than before and more to starboard they could
faintly make out the _Antelope_, so white that it seemed as if she had
gone down and her ghost come up wrapped and whipped in sheets of rain.

"You don't ask me about your mother," said Hugh.

XXXVI

CAPTAIN'S ROOM

"Ah!--when you've been all this time with us!"

"No, once I was away, a good while."

"That's so! And while you was away--were away--" In lively undertone
Ramsey ran on to tell of Mrs. Gilmore's having in Hugh's absence called
in her maid Harriet to show the young lady from Napoleon how to do a bit
of stage business without a hint of the stage. At the tale's end the
pair glanced round from the nearing _Antelope_ to the Gilmores and back
again. "Harriet's talented. You wouldn't think she could be talented.
And isn't she handsome!"

"I've yet to