account."

"Humph!... On which side?"

"Ramsey, I don't know. I _don't know_ till the time comes."

"Then how do you know you won't fight my brothers--now?"

"I shan't be armed."

"But if in an outburst you should snatch up some weapon?"

"I don't burst out. I don't snatch up."

"Humph! Wish I didn't."

They were rounding Point Breeze. The long reach from Fort Adams down to
Red River Landing lay before them. "Hugh, did you ever have a
presentiment? Of course not. I never did before. I got it a-comin' round
Hard Times Bend."

"Then I can cure it--with a new verse, one our poet has made and given
me. It shall be our parting word. Shall I?"

"Oh, yes, but not for parting! I don't want any parting!"

He spoke it softly:

"I dreamp I heard a joyful soun'--
O hahd times!--
Love once mo' foun' de last turn roun'
Hahd Times Ben'.
Los' an' foun', broke an' boun',
Love foun' an' boun' de last turn roun'
Hahd Times Ben'."

Ramsey barely waited for its end. "What's that light waving far away
down yonder? It began as you did."

"It didn't know it. It's only some one on the Red River wharf-boat,
wanting us to land," said Hugh, and before his last word came the
_Enchantress_ roared her assent to the signal. But Ramsey had spoken
again:

"What's this, right here?" She sprang up and gazed out on the water a
scant mile ahead. There, directly in the steamer's course and just out
of the moon's track, another faint light waved, so close to the water as
to be reflected in it. The moment the whistle broke out it ceased to
swing and when the whistle ceased the engines had stopped.

"What is it?" she asked again as Hugh stood by her looking out ahead
with eyes better trained to night use than hers.

"A skiff," he replied, "with some message."

She could see only that Watson had put the light on their starboard bow.
It seemed to drift toward them but she knew that the movement was the
steamer's, and now the light was so close as to show the negro who held
it. He stood poised to throw aboard a billet of wood with a note
attached. And now he cast it. The lower guards were out of Ramsey's line
of sight but a cry of disappointment told her the stick had fallen short
and would be lost under the great wheel, which at that moment, with its
fellow, "went ahead." But as the _Enchantress_ passed the skiff its
occupant called out a hurried statement to the mate, on the forecastle,
an