ied words. "I'll ask 'em up here some other time. You see we're
rolling a bit to-day, and like as not some of 'em would pitch over
things, and--and--well, there ain't room for more'n three at a time
anyhow."

"Then you ought to have asked Dr. Wells first and some of the
seniors."--She hesitated about saying elders.--No one of the Band would
have welcomed an invitation tendered on account of her advanced years.

"It'll be just as bad if I go and ask her now," said Butt testily. "The
others will take offence, and life's too short for a shipmaster to be
explaining to a lot of women why they can't all come at once on the
bridge. I'll have 'em up to-morrow--any three you say."

But when the morrow came he didn't "have 'em up." Maidie had pleaded
loyally for her associates, but was too proud or sensitive to so inform
them. The captain had said he would do that, and meanwhile she tried not
to feel exasperated at the injured airs assumed by several of the Band
and the cutting remarks of one or two of their number.

That afternoon, however, the skies became overcast and the wind rose.
That night the sea dashed high towards the rail and the Sacramento
wallowed deep in the surges. Next morning the wind had freshened to a
gale. All air-ports were closed. The spray swept the promenade deck along
the starboard side and the Red Cross and two-thirds of the martial
passenger-list forgot all minor ills and annoyances in the miseries of
_mal de mer_. Three days and nights were most of the women folk cooped
in their cabins, but Miss Ray was an old sailor and had twice seen
far heavier weather on the Atlantic. Sheltered from the rain by the
bridge-deck and from the spray and gale by heavy canvas lashed
athwartship in front of the captain's room, and securely strapped in her
reclining-chair, this young lady fairly rejoiced in the magnificent
battle with the elements and gloried in the bursting seas. Sandy, too,
albeit a trifle upset, was able to be on deck, and one of the "subs" from
the port-side hearing of it, donned his outer garments and cavalry boots
and joined forces with them, and Stuyvesant, hearing their merry voices,
declared that he could not breathe in his stuffy cabin and demanded to be
dressed and borne out on deck too. At first the surgeon said no,
whereupon his patient began to get worse.

So on the second day the doctor yielded, and all that day and the third
of the storm, by which time the starboard deck was slowly beco