words between the pilots, conversation failed. Without leave-taking Ned
left. Presently here he was beneath, on the skylight roof, and now he
joined the actor. Ramsey let go the caressed hand and moved nearer to
Watson. While he and she gazed far up the stream, yet watched the six
men below, he repeated Ned's question.

"See that clump o' big sycamores a mite to lab-board o' where we're
p'inted?"

She didn't believe she did.

"Well," he persisted, "that's it."

"That's what?"

"Why," said Watson, whose only aim was to set her once more at ease,
"that's the p'int you----"

"Humph." She turned to the two ladies, who, with their eyes frankly
below, were counselling together. "Let's go down there ourselves," she
said, but they whispered on.

"Better not," put in Watson; "you can't help."

His kind intent did not keep the words from hurting. With a faint toss
she said:

"I hoped we might be some hindrance."

She laughed in her old manner, dropped her glance again on the two men
and the four, and hearkened. So did the two ladies beside her. They
could all see who spoke below and could hear each voice in turn, though
they could not catch what was said. The only sustained speeches were the
senator's. The general's interpellations were little regarded. The
silent pair at the bell heard everything of essential bearing.

The consciously belated senator had begun with rhetorical regrets for
the captain's and the commodore's illness and with paternal enthusiasm
for those on whom it had brought such grave new cares. His own
sympathetic share in their anxieties, he had hurried on to say, had
robbed him of sleep and driven him up here solely for this interview. On
the way he had chanced upon the general in the----

"Sssame ffframe of mind," the general had said, while the senator
pressed as straight on as the _Votaress_.

As far as the interests involved were private to this boat, he said, her
officers and owners were entitled to keep them so and to be let alone in
the management of them. But when that management became by its nature a
vital part of an acute public problem--a national political issue--he
felt bound, both as the Courteneys' private well-wisher and as a public
servant, to urge such treatment of the matter as its national importance
demanded. A spark, he said, might burn a city! A question of private
ownership not worth a garnishee might set a whole nation afire! The
arrival of Gilmore at the bell threw h