old laid down the carving knife and
fork. "What did she say?" he inquired, eagerly. "Grunted," said the
captain. "Nonsense," said the other, sharply.

"I tell you she did," retorted the captain. "She didn't say a word; just
grunted."

"I know what you mean," said Mr. Tredgold; "only you are not using the
right word."

"All right," said the captain, resignedly; "I don't know a grunt when I
hear it, then; that's all. She generally does grunt if I happen to
mention your name."

Mr. Tredgold resumed his meal and sat eating in silence. The captain,
who was waiting for more beef, became restless.

"I hope my plate isn't in your way," he said, at last.

"Not at all," said the other, absently.

"Perhaps you'll pass it back to me, then," said the captain.

Mr. Tredgold, still deep in thought, complied. "I wish I could persuade
you to have a little more," he said, in tones of polite regret. "I've
often noticed that big men are small eaters. I wonder why it is?"

"Sometimes it is because they can't get it, I expect," said the indignant
captain.

Mr. Tredgold said that no doubt that was the case sometimes, and was only
recalled to the true position of affairs by the hungry captain marching
up to the beef and carving for himself.

"I'm sorry," he said, with a laugh. "I was thinking of something else.
I wonder whether you would let me use the crow's-nest for a day or two?
There's a place we have got on our hands, a mile or two out, and I want
to keep my eye on it."

The captain, his good humour quite restored, preserved his gravity with
an effort. "I don't see that she could object to that," he said, slowly.
"It's a matter of business, as you might say."

"Of course, I could go straight round to the back without troubling you,"
resumed Mr. Tredgold. "It's so awkward not to be able to see you when I
want to."

Captain Bowers ventured a sympathetic wink. "It's awkward not to be able
to see anybody when you want to," he said, softly.

Two days later Miss Drewitt, peeping cautiously from her bedroom window,
saw Mr. Tredgold perched up in the crow's-nest with the telescope. It
was a cold, frosty day in January, and she smiled agreeably as she
hurried downstairs to the fire and tried to imagine the temperature up
aloft.

Stern in his attention to duty, Mr. Tredgold climbed day after day to his
post of observation and kept a bored but whimsical eye on a deserted
cowhouse three miles off. On the fourth da