is she now?" I asked.

"Not up yet. She took a two-hour turn watching while we slept. Then she
sat by Dugan for a while. You'd ought to have seen her at the piano
singing 'My Maryland' and 'Dixie' to us just as if she had starred in a
mutiny every week of her life. She was doing it for what they call the
moral effect, and it sure did keep up the nerve of the boys. I could see
Jimmie and Billie get real gay again. Used to live in Tennessee, you
know."

"Jimmie or Billie?" I asked innocently.

"You know who I mean all right, you old son of a gun. Try this bacon.
It's the genuine guaranteed article. That Billie boy is some cook. Seems
her mother was a Southerner before Wallace married her."

"What was she afterward?"

"My, you're a humorist! Say, do you reckon that little bald spot on the
crown of my haid would be objectionable to her? I've never monkeyed with
these here hair tonics, but I'd be willing to take a whirl at them."

"Here she comes now. You can ask her."

"Did you sleep well?" the young woman asked, after we had exchanged
morning greetings.

"Clear round the clock and then some more. You must have had a fine
night's rest yourself from what I hear. On watch till one, and nursing
Dugan _from_ one. Wasn't that about it?"

"Not quite. I had three hours' sleep. Is your arm paining you much?"

"Don't waste any sympathy on him, Miss Evelyn," the cowman interrupted.
"His arm's just as good as a new wooden one, and his repartee is as
sharp as the cutlas that broke the skin on it."

She smiled as she began on her grapefruit. "Are you boys quarreling?"

"He hasn't had time to quarrel. He has been making a dreary waste of
what was once a platter of eggs and bacon."

"Now I like that," Tom protested.

"So I judge. Never mind, Miss Wallace. Billie can cook you some more."

"Who is on guard?" Evelyn asked.

"The kid. He's a scout for fair too; imagines he's Apache Jim, the
terror of the Navajos, or some other paper-backed hero. I hope his gun
won't go off and shoot him up."

We made a lively breakfast of it till Yeager had to leave. You may
think it strange that we could laugh and jest on that death ship, but
one gets accustomed to the strain and on the reflex from anxiety arrives
at a temporary gaiety.

After the cattleman had taken his breezy departure a constraint fell
upon us. Evelyn's eyes were shy, and mine not a great deal bolder.
Yesterday we could have chatted away with the most delightful fre