rboard bow, shrouded in the swirling rain. How unlike the earlier
passing, down below Natchez! No touching of guards, no hail by sign or
sound. "Like ladies under two umbrell's!" laughed Ramsey to the actor's
wife.

Now squarely abreast, stem and stem, wheel and wheel, the two crafts
seemed to stand motionless with the tempest rushing aft between them.
Then fathom after fathom the _Antelope_ fell behind, the mate and the
Gilmores moved away, Ramsey softly bade Hugh "go on," and his first
utterance drew her liveliest look.

"There's another thing makes your brothers wild," he said, "which
they're not to blame for."

"What's that?"

"Our starving plantation life," said Hugh, speaking low.

"Why, they call it the only life for a gentleman!"

"That's because they're so starved, so marooned."

"It's so tasteless without high seasoning, Basile says," said Ramsey.
She meditated. "Basile loves to eat."

Said Hugh, "It's a life I don't want you to live," and for an age of
seconds they looked into each other's eyes.

Then Ramsey--not drooping a lash--"I love the river."

"For keeps?"

She nodded, and still they looked. At length said Hugh:

"I tried hard to make friends with the twins, but----"

"They wouldn't. I know. Mr. Watson told Mrs. Gilmore."

"Yet a while ago, on the strength of it, they sent for me, to ask me to
ask my father to indorse their note."

Ramsey gasped: "You declined, of course?"

"Yes, but I told those other two passengers if they cast another card
with any of your brothers they'd go ashore, themselves, as quick as the
boat could land."

Ramsey turned and gazed out on the subsiding storm. "Why are the senator
and the general down there?"

"For quite another matter."

"Weapons. I know. Mr. Watson told Mrs. Gilmore. I thought that was
settled."

"It is."

"Then why is your father there?"

"To get the twins away from the senator and the general, and their
brother away from them and back to his----"

"Sister!" softly laughed Ramsey. "Oh, not to mom-a! just to me! I'll
go--" She started, but Hugh said:

"To you, yes, when my father has put him in a way to cover his loss
without telling your mother."

Their eyes met again. Hers were bright and wet with accusal. "Is that
_your_ proposition?"

"Yes, and my father's too."

She whipped round and gazed out again over the tawny waters. To gaze out
beside her he came so near that they almost touched. The shores were
once more a clear