and to realize that supper had been a mistake. Jim and Dud had retired to
their staterooms, with unpleasant memories of Minnie Foster's chocolates,
and the firm conviction that they never wanted to see a candy box again.
Brother Bart was ministering to a very white-faced "laddie," and thanking
Heaven he was in the state of grace and prepared for the worst.

"The Lord's will be done, but I don't think any of us will live to see the
morning. There must have been some poison in the food, to take us all
suddint like this."

"Oh, no, Brother Bart!" gasped Freddy, faintly. "I've been this way
before. We're all just--just seasick, Brother Bart--dead seasick."

Even Dan had a few qualms,--just enough to send him, with the sturdy sense
of his rough kind, out into the widest sweep of briny air within his
reach. He made for a flight of stairs that led up into some swaying,
starlit region where there were no other sufferers, and flung himself upon
a pile of life-preservers that served as a pillow for his dizzy head.
Sickness of any sort was altogether new to Dan, and he felt it would be
some relief to groan out his present misery unheard. But the glow of a
cigar, whose owner was pacing the deck, suddenly glimmered above his head,
and the big man in corduroy nearly stumbled over him.

"Hello!" he said. "Down and out, my boy? Here, take a swig of this!" and
he handed out a silver-mounted flask.

"No," said Dan, faintly, "--can't. I've taken the pledge."

"Pooh! Don't be a fool, boy, when you're sick!"

"Wouldn't touch it if I were dying," said Dan. "I'm getting better now,
anyhow. My, but I felt queer for a while! It is so hot and stuffy below.
No more packing in on a shelf for me. I'll stick it out here until
morning."

"And the others,--the little chap who was with you?" the stranger asked
hastily. "Is he--he sick, too?"

"Freddy Neville? Yes, dead sick; but Brother Bart is looking out for him.
Brother Bart is a regular old softy about Freddy. He took him when he was
a little kid and keeps babying him yet."

"He is good to him, you mean?" asked the other, eagerly.

"Good? Well, I suppose you'd call it good. I couldn't stand any such
fussing. Why, when Fred got a tumble in the gym the other day the old man
almost had a fit!"

"A tumble,--a fall; did it hurt him much?" There was a strange sharpness
in the questioner's voice.

"Pooh, no!" said Dan. "Just knocked him out a little. But we were all
getting into trouble at