t
two words, sure enough, there broke from him a laugh which to him seemed
so honest, friendly, well justified, and unmanageable that he stood
astounded when his accuser blazed with wrath.

"You lie, damn you!" was the answering cry. "And then you laugh in my
face! We saw you--all three of you--just now!" The note was so high that
one of the pilots began to loiter down from the pilot-house.

Hugh crimsoned. "I see," he said, advancing step by step as the frenzied
boy drew back. "You really don't want a peaceable explanation, at all,
do you?"

The other twin, Julian, arrested his brother's back step by a touch and
spoke for him: "No, sir, we don't. You can't 'peaceably explain' foul
treatment, you damned fool, and that's all we Hayles have had of you
Courteneys this day. We want satisfaction! We don't ask it, we'll take
it! And we'll get it"--here a ripping oath--"if we have to wait for it
ten years!"

This time Hugh paled. "It needn't take ten minutes," he said. "Come down
to the freight deck, into the engine room, and I'll give both of you so
much of it that you won't know yourselves apart."

"One more insult!" cried Lucian, the boy who so often widened his eyes,
while Julian, narrowing his lids, said in a tone suddenly icy:

"That classes you, sir, on the freight deck."

"We don't fight deck hands," said Lucian.

"Nor emigrants!" sneered his brother. "And when we fight gentlemen we
fight with weapons, sir, as gentlemen should."

Hugh's awkward laugh came again, and the pilot who had come down from
beside his fellow at the wheel inquired:

"What's the fraction here?"

"Oh, nothing," said Hugh.

"Everything!" cried Julian. "And you'll find it so the first time we get
a fair chance at you--any of you!"

The pilot was amiable. "Hold on," he suggested. "See here, my young
friend, what do you reckon your father'd do to this young man"--touching
Hugh--"if he should rip around on a Hayle boat as you're doing here?"

"That's a totally different matter, sir!"

The pilot smiled. "Don't you know Gideon Hayle would put him ashore at
the first wood-yard?"

"He'd be wrong if he didn't," gravely said Hugh.

"Do you mean that for a threat?--either of you?" snapped Lucian.

"No," said the pilot, "I was merely trying to reason with you. Come,
now, go down to supper. It's a roaring good one: crawfish gumbo, riz
biscuits, fresh butter, fried oysters, and coffee to make your hair
curl. Go on, both of you. You've had-