is certainly the climax, Mr.
Grider!"

The young man at the wheel pursed his lips as if he were going to
whistle; then he appeared to comprehend suddenly and went off in another
gust of Hudibrastic mirth.

"I've been figuring it all out as I came along up river," he choked;
"how you had tried to account for yourselves to each other--how you had
been wrestling with the lack of all the little civilized knickknacks and
notions--how you'd look when you came out. Excuse me, but your--your
clothes, you know; you're a pair to make a wooden idol hold his sides
and chortle himself to death!"

This seemed to be adding insult to injury, and by this time Prime was
speechless, Berserk-mad, as he himself would have written it. Nothing
but Lucetta's restraining hand upon his arm kept him from hurling
himself, reckless of consequences, upon the heartless jester. When he
could control his symptoms sufficiently to find a few coherent words, he
contrived to ease the soul-nausea--in some small measure.

"There is another day coming, Grider; don't you lose sight of that for a
single minute!" he raged. "I'm not saying anything about myself; perhaps
I have given you cause to assume that you can pull off your brutal
initiation stunts on me whenever you feel like it. That's all right, but
you've overdone the thing this time. Miss Millington's quarrel is my
quarrel. If I can't get you in any other way, I'll post you in every
club you belong to as the man who plays horse-laugh jokes on women!"

[Illustration: "The account between us is too long to wait for
daylight!"]

At this outburst Grider only laughed again, appearing to be entirely and
quite joyously impervious to either scorn or red rage.

"Perhaps I do owe you both an apology--not for the joke--that is too
ripping good to be spoiled--but for breaking your night's rest in that
peppery Scotchman's birch-bark," he offered. "If you'll duck under the
raised deck, you'll find two dog-kennel staterooms. The port-side kennel
is yours, Don, and the other is Miss Millington's. Suppose you turn in
and get your nap out. To-morrow morning, if you still feel in the humor
for it, you can get together and give me what you seem to think is
coming to me. _Shoo!_ I can't steer this boat and play skittles with you
at the same time. Run along to bed--both of you!"

With such a case-hardened barbarian for a host, there seemed to be
nothing else to be done, and Prime took Lucetta's arm and helped her
d