his hearers he laid a
touch on Mrs. Gilmore's arm and in a restrained voice so confidential as
to reach only to the pilot-house above and to the two men at the stair's
foot below began to sing.

Before half a line was out the Californian had seized both of Gilmore's
shoulders. "My poem!" he gasped. "I gave it to him last night to
grammatize! He's fit it to a tchune. Partner, he's the only man that's
listened----"

"Sh-sh-sh! listen yourself," whispered the actor, and this is what they
heard:

[Music: O come and grace my gar-den, From all the world a-part. Thou
on-ly may'st the won-der see Of birds and flow'rs that in it be, For all
of them are dreams of thee. My gar-den is my heart,... My gar-den is my
heart.]

"If heaven might make my garden
An empire wide and great,
Fidelity should close it in,
The joy of life bloom evergreen,
And love be law and thou be queen,
Might I but keep the gate.

"For where would be my garden,
Dear love, from thee apart?
Whose every bush and bower and tree,
Its founts, perfumes, and minstrelsy
And all its flowers spring all from thee,
Thou sunlight of my heart."

"You say that's your poem?" murmured the actor.

"Oh, he's doctored it," stealthily admitted the Californian. "He's
doctored it a lot."

LXI

WANTED, HAYLE'S TWINS

Early in the next forenoon another of the Californian's benevolent
schemes threatened to miscarry.

At the settlement of Milliken's Bend there were people already at the
landing, and people running to it from three directions. Yet not a hat,
hand, or handkerchief did they wave until the _Enchantress_, in full
view up toward the head of the bend, was too near to mistake their
salutes for a sign to stop. Then there were wavings aplenty and cries of
acclaim. By the "River News" daily telegraphed down to the New Orleans,
Vicksburg, and other papers, from Louisville, Paducah, Cairo, and like
points, and brought up in those papers by such boats as the _Antelope_,
it had been known here and at every important landing below that this
latest bride of the river was coming and the time of her appearance had
been definitely calculated. And now behold her, a vision of delight, a
winged victory, the finest apparition yet. Up in front of her bell could
be seen Captain Hugh, and who was that beside him, twice his bulk, but
Gideon Hayle!

"Well, well, what's going to happen next?"