tful rubbish! You've got to sing
the rest, yourself! Oh, Mrs. Gilmore, make him do it! It'll tickle 'em
all to death--to hear _him_ sing Gideon's Band!--and I can stay with
Basile."

"Preposterous!" rumbled Hugh, and again, "preposterous!"

"Why--happy thought!" said Mrs. Gilmore. "Why, the very thing, Mr. Hugh,
the very thing! Come. First we'll take this young lady up-stairs----" As
they started the Californian appeared, laying a caressing hand on Hugh.

XLI

QUITS

"Wait here," slowly said Hugh in response to the gold-hunter's touch.
"I'll--see you presently."

The modest adventurer waved assent, yet looked so disappointed that Mrs.
Gilmore, moving to take his arm, asked:

"Can't Mr. So-and-so go with us?"

Oh, kind, quick wit! Three is a crowd, four is only twice two!

"Certainly," said Hugh, and to Ramsey added: "We'd better lead the way."

As they led she softly inquired: "Does he want to know something about
the twins?"

What arrows were her questions, and how straight they struck home! Yet
with that low voice for their bowstring they gave him comfort. Her
forays into his confidence not only relieved the loneliness of his too
secretive mind but often, as now, involved a sweet yielding of her
confidence to him. Yet now a straight answer was quite impossible.

"He wants to know something about you," was the reply.

She let the palpable evasion pass. On the hurricane roof there was a new
sight. The breeze was astern and moved so evenly with the boat as to
enfold her in a calm. Looking up for the stars, one saw only the giant
chimneys towering straight into the darkness and sending their smoke as
straight and as far again beyond, spangled with two firefly swarms of
sparks that fell at last in a perpetual, noiseless shower.

"Why do we go this way?" she asked, meaning forward around the skylight
roof instead of across it.

"Because this way's longer."

"Humph!" was the soft response. Presently she added, "We get more fresh
air this way," and called back to their two followers: "This is to avoid
the sparks."

"Um-hmm!" thought kind Mrs. Gilmore, and, "Oh, ho!" mused the
Californian, not quite so unselfishly.

Around in front of the bell both youth and maiden observed how palely
the derrick posts loomed against the spectral chimneys and their smoke,
and silently recalled their first meeting, just here, in the long ago of
two days earlier. The captain's chair was occupied.

"Well, father,"