his kind. He's so full of life, so fresh and yet
so wise."

"His music isn't fresh anyhow. I move we go stop it."

"Thank you, I'm very comfortable here. I don't second the motion," she
declined.

"Motion withdrawn. But I'm going to tempt him from that piano just the
same. Jimmie, come here. Run down to the music-room and tell Mr. Yeager
that Miss Wallace would like to see him."

Evelyn laughed.

"I think you're real mean, Mr. Sedgwick."

"For saving the life of your musical soul?"

"He _is_ pretty bad," she admitted.

He was on the chorus again, his raucous exuberant voice riding it like
one of his own bucking broncos.

Golden, rippling sunshine warms me through and through,
Each flower has a new perfume since I first met you.

"Bad. He's the worst ever. Thank Heaven, we've got him stopped! There he
comes with Jimmie."

He moved across the deck toward us with that little roll usually
peculiar to dismounted horsemen of the plains.

"I _do_ like him," the young woman murmured. "He's so strong and gentle
and good-natured. I don't suppose he could get mad."

"Oh, couldn't he? I'll ask him about that."

"Now I _do_ think you're mean," she reproached with a flash of her eyes.

"You sent for me, Miss Wallace? Was it to throw him overboard because
he's mean?" Yeager asked genially.

Her eye was sparkling and her lips open for an answer, but the words
were never spoken. For at that instant a man burst past us with blood
streaming down his face from a ghastly cut in the forehead. He was
making for the bridge.

"It's come," I said, rising and drawing my revolver.

"I must go to Auntie," Evelyn said, very white about the lips.

"Not now. She's perfectly safe. They won't trouble her till they have
won the ship."

"And there will be some merry times before then, I expect," said Tom,
his hand on the butt of a revolver and his vigilant eye sweeping the
deck.

We were hurrying forward to the wheelhouse. Every moment I expected to
see a rush of men tearing up the companionway, but all seemed quiet and
orderly. The hands on deck either had not noticed Dugan, or else were
awaiting developments.

"'Twas Caine did it, sir," Dugan explained to Blythe. "I was lying in my
bunk when he came down with the stowaway you were holding prisoner."

"With Bothwell?" I cried.

"Yes, sir. They asked me to join them in taking the ship. They put it
plain they meant to get the treasure."

"Do you know which of the men is wi