ve been there before. No use
talking--this line's got to be investigated, and I'm going to do the
investigating as soon as I get ashore, and don't you forget it! What's
your opinion?"

The Bum Actor made no reply. He had been cold and hungry too many days
and nights to find fault with anything. But for the generosity of a few
friends he would still be tramping the streets, sleeping where he could.
Three meals a day--four, if he wanted them--and a bed in a room all to
himself instead of being one in a row of ten, was heaven to him. What
the Captain, or the Engineer, or the crew, or anybody else did, was
of no moment, so he got back alive. As to the widow's children, he
had tried to pick up an acquaintance with them himself--especially
the boy--but she had taken them away when she saw how shabby were his
clothes.

The Texas Cattle Agent now spoke up. He was a tall, raw-boned man, with
a red chin-whisker and red, weather-scorched face, whose clothing looked
as if it had been pulled out of shape in the effort to accommodate
itself to the spread of his shoulders and round of his thighs. His
trousers were tucked in his boots, the straps hanging loose. He
generally sat by himself in one corner of the cramped smoking-room, and
seldom took part in the conversation. The Bum Actor and he had exchanged
confidences the night before, and the Texan therefore felt justified in
answering in his friend's stead.

"You're way off, friend," he said to the Man-Who-Knew-It-All. "There
ain't nothin' the matter with the Line, nor the ship, nor the Captain.
This is my sixth trip aboard of her, and I know! They had a strike among
the stevedores the day we sailed, and then, too, we've got a scrub lot
of stokers below, and the Captain's got to handle 'em just so. That kind
gets ugly when anything happens. I had sixty head of cattle aboard here
on my last trip over, and some of 'em got loose in a storm, and there
was hell to pay with the crew till things got straightened out. I ain't
much on shootin' irons, but they came handy that time. I helped and I
know. Got a couple in my cabin now. Needn't tell me nothin' about the
Captain. He's all there when he's wanted, and it don't take him more'n a
minute, either, to get busy."

The door of the smoking-room opened and the object of his eulogy
strolled in. He was evidently just off the bridge, for the thrash of
the spray still glistened on his oilskins and on his gray, half-moon
whiskers. That his wor