"Don't mind that n.i.g.g.e.r!" yelped Captain Downs, "How did you ever get nigh enough to that girl to horn-swoggle her into this foolishness?"

"We met at dances. We were attracted to each other," explained Bradish, meekly.

"Huh! Yes, they tell me that girls are crazy over hoof-shaking these days, and I suppose it's easy to go on from there into a general state of plumb lunacy," commented Old Mull, with disgust. "You show you ain't really in love with her, young man. You'd never allow her to cut up this caper if you were!"

He stuck an unlighted cigar in his mouth and continued to patrol his quarter-deck, muttering.

Bradish lighted a cigarette, tossed it away after two puffs, and leaned against the house, studying his fingertips, scowling and sullen.

Mayo had heard all the conversation, but his interest in the ident.i.ty of these persons was limited; New York was full of rich men, and there were many silly daughters.

"Look here," suggested the captain, unamiably, "whatever is done later, there's something to be done now. It's cruelty to animals to keep that girl shut up in that stateroom any longer."

"She didn't want to come out and show herself till I had had a talk with you, sir. I have spoken to her through the door a few times." He straightened himself and a.s.sumed dignity. "Captain Downs, I call it to your attention--I want you to remember that I have observed all the proprieties since I have been on board."

Captain Downs snorted. "Proprieties--poosh! You have got her into a nice sc.r.a.pe! And she's down there locked in like a cat, and probably starving!"

"She doesn't care to eat. I think she isn't feeling very well."

"I shouldn't think she would! Go bring her up here, where she can get some fresh air. I'll talk to her."

After a moment's hesitation Bradish went below. He returned in a little while.

In spite of his efforts to pretend obliviousness Mayo stared hard at the companionway, eager to look on the face of the girl. But she did not follow her lover.

"She doesn't feel well enough to come on deck," reported Bradish. "But she is in the saloon. Captain Downs, won't you go and talk to her and say something to make her feel easy in her mind? She is very nervous.

She is frightened."

"I'm not much of a ladies' man," stated Old Mull. But he pulled off his cap and smoothed his grizzled hair.

"And if you could only say that you're going to help us!" pleaded the lover. "We throw ourselves on your mercy, sir."

"I ain't much good as a life-raft in this love business." He started for the companionway.

"But don't tell her that you will not marry us--not just now. Wait till she is calmer."

"Oh, I sha'n't tell her! Don't worry!" said Captain Downs, with a grim set to his mouth. "All she, or you, gets out of me can be put in a flea's eye."

He disappeared down the steps, and Bradish followed. A mate had come aft, obeying the master's hand-flourish, and he took up the watch. In a little while Mayo was relieved. He went forward, conscious that he was a bit irritated and disappointed because he had not seen the heroine of this love adventure, and wondering just a bit at his interest in that young lady.

An hour later Mayo, coiling down lines in the alley outside the engine-room, overheard a bulletin delivered by the one-eyed cook to the engineer.

The cook had trotted forward, his sound eye bulging out and thus mutely expressing much astonishment. "There's a dame aft. I've been making tea and toast for her."

"Well, you act as if it was the first woman you'd ever seen. What's the special excitement about a skirt going along as pa.s.senger?"

"She wa'n't expected to be aboard. I heard the old man talking with her.

The flash gent that's pa.s.senger has rung her in somehow. I didn't get all the drift be-cause the old man only sort of purred while I was in hearing distance. But I caught enough to know that it ain't according to schedule."

"Good looker?" The engineer was showing a bit of interest.

"She sure is!" declared the cook, demonstrating that one eye is as handy, sometimes, as two. "Peaches and cream, mola.s.ses-candy hair, hands as white as pastry flour. Looks good enough to eat."

"n.o.body would ever guess you are a cook, hearing you describe a girl,"

sneered the engineer.

"There's a mystery about her. I heard her kind of taking on before the dude hushed her up. She was saying something about being sorry that she had come, and that she wished she was back, and that she had always done things on the impulse, and didn't stop to think, and so forth, and couldn't the ship be turned around."

Mayo forgot himself. He stopped coiling ropes and stood there and listened eagerly until the cook's indignant eye chanced to take a swing in his direction.

"Do you see who's standing there b.u.t.ting in on the private talk of two gents?" he asked the engineer. "Hand me that grate-poker--the hot one.

I'll show that n.i.g.g.e.r where he belongs."

But Mayo retreated in a hurry, knowing that he was not permitted to protest either by word or by look. However, the cook had given him something else besides an insult--he had retailed gossip which kept the young man's thoughts busy.

In spite of his rather contemptuous opinion of the wit of a girl who would hazard such a silly adventure, he found himself pitying her plight, guessing that she was really sorry. But as to what was going on in the master's cabin he had no way of ascertaining. He wondered whether Captain Downs would marry the couple in such equivocal fashion.

At any rate, pondered Mayo, how did it happen to be any affair of his?

He had troubles enough of his own to occupy his sole attention.

Their spanking wind from the sou'west let go just as dusk shut down. A yellowish scud dimmed the stars. Mayo heard one of the mates say that the gla.s.s had dropped. He smelled nasty weather himself, having the sailor's keen instinct. The topsails were ordered in, and he climbed aloft and had a long, lone struggle before he got the heavy canvas folded and lashed.

When he reached the deck a mate commanded him to fasten the canvas covers over the skylights of the house. The work brought him within range of the conversation which Captain Downs and Bradish were carrying on, pacing the deck together.

"Of course I don't want to throw down anybody, captain," Bradish was saying. There was an obsequious note in his voice; it was the tone of a man who was affecting confidential cordiality in order to get on--to win a favor. "But I have a lot of sympathy for you and for the rest of the schooner people. I have been right there in the office, and have had a finger in the pie, and I've seen what has been done in a good many cases. Of course, you understand, this is all between us! I'm not giving away any of the office secrets to be used against the big fellows. But I'm willing to show that I'm a friend of yours. And I know you'll be a friend of mine, and keep mum. All is, you can get wise from what I tell you and can keep your eyes peeled from now on."

Mayo heard fragmentary explanation of how the combination of steamboat and barge interests had operated to leave only pickings to the schooners. The two men were tramping the deck together, and at the turns were too far away from him to be heard distinctly.

"But they're putting over the biggest job of all just now," proceeded Bradish. "Confound it, Captain Downs, I'm not to be blamed for running away with a man's daughter after watching him operate as long as I have.

His motto is, 'Go after it when you see a thing you want in this world.'

I've been trained to that system. I've got just as much right to go after a thing as he. I'm treasurer of the Paramount--that's the trust with which they intend to smash the opposition. My job is to ask no questions and to sign checks when they tell me to, and Heaven only knows what kind of a goat it will make of me if they ever have a show-down in the courts! They worked some kind of a shenanigan to grab off the Vose line; I wired a pot of money to Fletcher Fogg, who was doing the dirty work, and it was paid to a clerk to work proxies at the annual meeting.

And then Fogg put up some kind of a job on a greenhorn captain--worked a flip trick on the fellow and made him shove the _Montana_ onto the sands. I suppose they'll have the Vose line at their price before I get back."

Mayo sat there in the shadow, squatting on legs which trembled.

This babbler--tongue loosened by his new liberty and by the antagonism his small nature was developing, antic.i.p.ating his employer's enmity--had dropped a word of what Mayo knew must be the truth. It had been a trick--and Fletcher Fogg had worked it! Mayo did not know who Fletcher Fogg's employer might be. From what office this tattler came he did not know; but it was evident that Bradish was cognizant of the trick. As a result of that trick, an honest man had been ruined and blacklisted, deprived of opportunity to work in his profession, was a fugitive, a despised sailor, kicked to the Very bottom of the ladder he had climbed so patiently and honorably.

Furious pa.s.sion bowled over Mayo's prudence. He leaped down from the top of the house and presented himself in front of the two men.

"I heard it--I couldn't help hearing it!" he stuttered.

"Here's a n.i.g.g.e.r gone crazy!" yelped Captain Downs. "Ahoy, there, for'ard! Tumble aft with a rope!"

"I'm no n.i.g.g.e.r, and I'm not crazy!" shouted Mayo.

The swinging lantern in the companionway lighted him dimly. But in the gloom his dusky hue was only the more accentuated. His excitement seemed that of a man whose wits had been touched.

"I knew it was a trick. But what was the trick?" he demanded, starting toward Bradish, his clutching hands outspread.