Humph! you don't know that he'll come near me. Aboard his own boat, on
her trial trip, he's got other fish to fry. But even if he should, don't
you see how absolute the deadlock is? Oh, you must have seen it these
eight years and more!--in spite of everybody's silence."

"We didn't. We don't see it even now, Gilmore and I. We don't believe
Captain Hugh sees any deadlock whatever. He merely knows you think you
do. You think to accept him would condemn him to death?"

"Mrs. Gilmore, I know it would. My brothers--may have broken promises
but they--keep--their--threats. You know that's the fashion of all this
country, from Cairo down."

"Ma-a-ark, twai-ai-ain," chanted the leadsman for his final call, and
not only Hugh but an echo from the land repeated it. To many an ear,
poetic ear, that echo is there yet, in all that country, from Cairo
down. But that is aside. Watson and his partner threw the wheel over and
the _Enchantress_ swept round for the chute.

In the bright moonlight Hugh and the boat's builder turned back toward
the solitary chair, placidly conversing. Gilmore talked on with
"California." His wife and Ramsey drew back into the corner behind them.

"Your brothers," murmured Mrs. Gilmore, "threatened Hugh's life just the
same before you came into the issue at all."

"Yes," said Ramsey, "and they're watching their chance yet. Julian told
me so this summer and Lucian berated him for 'showing his hand.' Oh,
that isn't the deadlock, by itself. The deadlock is that as long as Hugh
Courteney holds off the feud will keep, but when he doesn't I come in
and it won't; everything's precipitated. And so, you see?...

"Hmm! Hugh Courteney won't put himself, or me, or mom-a, where, in a
fight for his life, no matter who's killed the killing would be in the
family, and the killed would be ours, mom-a's--and--and mine. The twins
see that. Jule says it, and, what's worse, Luce says nothing. That's why
_they_ are entirely satisfied with the deadlock.... Look."

The boat's contractor was leaving the deck. Hugh had started toward the
pilot-house. But when Mrs. Gilmore looked she looked beyond him in
meditation.

"I know what you're thinking," said Ramsey. "But it'll never happen.
They've settled down to the ordinary term of a decent life, thank
God!... Here he comes. Think he'll talk to me? Yes, he will. He'll begin
where he left off." She laughed. "He's going to tell me the name of his
next boat, if he ever builds another