forward of the bell, he was reminded of a certain young
lady the sight of whom on the previous evening just after his brush with
Hayle's twins, standing there before Hugh Courteney with her arms
akimbo, had led him to say: "If that's to be the game I'm in it." He
wished she were there now, or up here again in the pilot-house asking
her countless questions about this endlessly interesting world's
highway. He would be answering that the mouth of Red River was now
twenty miles behind, the mouth of Buffalo Bayou ten and of Homochitto
River four; that right here they were in the great cut-off of a hundred
and fifty-odd years before. He would say they were passing up the west
shore because the current was over yonder on the east side, Palmetto
Point, and that behind there, inland, lay the great loop of still water
which had once been part of the river. He would explain that now the
slender Homochitto ran through that still water lengthwise, for miles,
until, within forty rods of the Mississippi, it recoiled again to launch
in at last farther down, opposite Black Hawk Point, still in sight
astern. And he would tell how, over here on this west side, Red River
was yet only four miles away and actually sent Grand Cut-off Bayou
across into the Mississippi, but likewise swerved away southward through
seven leagues more of wet forest before it finally surrendered to the
mightier stream. All this would he tell, without weariness, to one who
loved his great river.

Yet really he was in the pilot-house at this time not chiefly for the
river, nor the girl, nor the _Votaress_, though the _Votaress_ was new,
with kinks of character quite her own and important to be learned. He
was there because the stateroom given Hayle's twins in the texas was
next to his, and they, rarely in their life having restricted themselves
to tones of privacy and being now especially in a state of storm and
stress, had made sleep impossible even to a pilot off watch after a
midday Sunday dinner. Lounging in his berth, he had overheard things
which ought to be told to one Courteney or another early, though, of
course, casually.

Meantime he enjoyed not telling his partner, at whose back he quietly
chatted while the partner stood with hands and foot on the wheel and
with eyes well up the river, holding the jack-staff close to his "mark"
far ahead in the next bend.

"I couldn't stay," drawled Watson. "Noth'n' 'twixt the sick one an' me
but a half-inch bulkhead.