g to personal matters infinitely more important. "Go on," she said,
"I like cabin figures. How long, wide, and high will the cabin be?"

"Two hundred and sixty-three by nineteen by sixteen."

"What'll her name be? Another e-double-s, of course?"

"No, I've just been telling your father--here comes the _Antelope_. I
was telling him that grandfather----"

An overhead roar of reply to the signal of the approaching boat drowned
all words, but Ramsey had learned on coming aboard that the grandfather
was still sound though beyond four score, and her one vivid wish now was
to know more not of him but of Hugh and her father. Yet she had to let
Hugh hand her up the pilot-house stair, and without him rejoined the
Gilmores while Watson spoke down to the man in the captain's chair as to
the light-draught _Antelope_ having come up through the chute of Island
So-and-so. She was just in time to accept her share in the splendor and
gayety of the two boats' meeting and passing. As the picture dissolved,
Mrs. Gilmore slyly pinched Ramsey's finger while asking Watson:

"Why don't our men sing? _I_ want some more 'Lindy!"

Had she not heard the signal for the lead? No, in the excitement she had
not, though both Ramsey and "California" had, there being to them an
unfailing poetry in the casting of the lead, whether by day or, as now,
by the glare of a torch basket let down close to the water under the
starboard freight guards. At one end of the breast-board the two ladies,
at the other the actor and the Californian, looked out and down. The
boat's builder had left his seat and stood with Hugh at the forward
rail. From the freight guards, far below, the leadsman, unseen up here
except to experienced "poetic vision," sent up a long-drawn chant
telling the fathoms of depth shown on the sounding-line that flew
forward from his skilled hand into the boat's moonlight shadow, plunged
to the river's bed, vibrated past his feet in the glare of the pine
torch, stretched aft while he chanted, and was recovered in dripping
coils and hove again.

"Mark under wa-ater, twai-ai-ain."

As the notes resounded Hugh looked up to the pilots and in his quietest
speaking voice repeated:

"Mark under water, twain."

But our concern here is mainly with those for whom the scene, the calls,
veiled two private conversations. Three or four times the one melodious
cry, following as many casts, rose from below, and each time, with all
its swing and melody left