th instructions to touch them off on a hint
of danger."

"Oh, oh!" said I. "So Mr. Goodfellow, too, knew of this?
And Plinny, I suppose? And, in fact, you told every one but me?"

"No, sir," said Captain Branscome, gravely; "I did not trouble Miss
Plinlimmon with these perhaps unnecessary fears. To a lady of her
sensitive nature--"

"Oh, well, sir," I interrupted and, turning aside pettishly, began to
haul my cockboat down to the water, "since you choose to treat me
like a baby of six, I suppose it's no wonder you take Plinny for a
timorous old fool."

"Sir!" exploded Captain Branscome, and glancing back over my shoulder
I saw him leaning on his stick and fairly trembling with wrath.
"This disrespectful language! And of a lady for whom--for whom--"

"Disrespect?"--I whistled. "Is it worse to speak disrespect or to
act it? I have known Plinny for years--you for a month or two; and
one of these days, if this expedition gets into a mess--as it likely
will with such handling--that sensitive lady will make you see
stars."

I knew, while I uttered it, that my speech was abominably
ill-conditioned; that Captain Branscome had, in fact, been holding
out the olive-branch, and that in common decency I ought to have
caught at it. In short, I felt my boyish temper going from bad to
worse, and yet, somehow, that I could not apply the brake to it.

"Why, confound the boy!" ejaculated Mr. Rogers. "What ever bee has
stung him?" And gripping me by the shoulder as I heaved at the boat,
he swung me round to face him. "Look here, young Harry Brooks!
Do you happen to be sickening for something, that you talk like a
gutter-snipe to a gentleman old enough to be your grandfather?
Or, damme, have you and Goodfellow been coming to blows? By the nose
of you and the state of your shirt a man would say you've come from a
street fight; and by your talk, that your head was knocked silly."

"It's all very well, Mr. Rogers," said I, sulkily, "and I know I
oughtn't to have spoken like that, but I hate to be tyrannized over.
That's why I didn't take your warning first along and pull back to
the ship--though I thank you for it all the same."

"Eh?" said Mr. Rogers. "My warning? What in thunder is the boy
talking about?"

"When you saw me sculling for shore, here, about an hour ago," I
explained, "you pretended not to see me, and went after Captain
Branscome; but I saw you, fast enough, standing on the bank yonder,
under the trees