odwin. "I can't come out. What d'you want?"

The little congregation rose to its feet for the singing of the hymn.
Old Noble, rising with them, leaned forward and peered past Goodwin
at the girl. His keen old face inspected her inscrutably for a while.

"That's her, I reckon," he said to Goodwin in a windy whisper. "Well,
I'm not sayin' nothin'. Come on out."

"I can't, I tell ye," breathed Goodwin. "Don't you go startin'
anything here, now! Say what ye got to say, an' be done with it."

Old Noble scowled. About him the simple hymn rose and fell in its
measured cadences. Among the honest folk who sang it there was none
more venerable and seemly than he. His head was white with the sober
snow of years; by contrast with his elderly gravity, the young
vividness and force of Goodwin seemed violent and crude.

"I won't start nothin'," whispered Noble harshly. "Don't be afeared.
I bin lookin' for ye, Dan; I want ye to have a chanst. We're sailin'
in the mornin', an', Dan, we're short-handed three hands short, we
are!"

His words came and went under cover of the hymn.

"Men won't ship aboard of her; she's got a bad name," the whisper
continued. "She's full o' Dutchmen an' Dagoes again. It's goin' to be
the hell of a passage an' the Horn in August, too. Come on an' stand
yer share of it, Dan."

Goodwin glared down indignantly at the old rusty-red face beside him.

"You're crazy," he said shortly.

"Ye ain't comin'?"

For answer Goodwin only shrugged. It sufficed. With no further word
Noble turned away and walked forth on heavy feet from the hall. There
followed him to the street, as if in derision, the refrain of that
landsman's hymn: "Leave the poor old stranded wreck, and pull for the
shore!"

"Now!" said Goodwin, when at last the missioner had closed the
service with his blessing.

The girl was nervous; plainly, she would have been glad to refuse.
But Goodwin was in earnest, and, unwillingly enough, she surrendered
to the compulsion of his will and went out with him. Outside upon the
sidewalk she spoke angrily.

"I don't like the way you act," she said, and her voice had tears in
it. "You think a person's got."

Goodwin interrupted. "I don't think nothin'," he said. "I got to find
out. An' I can't find out while we're hustlin' to the corner. Come
down towards the docks. You're all right with me; an' I got to find
out."

He did not even touch her arm, but she went with him.

"Find out what?" she asked u