no; not
at all. I am enjoying it every bit. Though I am glad that man's
revolver stuck. If it had not--"

"We might have been delayed in getting ashore." The first officer
laughed, and therein displayed his tact.

"That man is a robber," he went on, indicating the boatman, who had now
shoved his oars into the water and was pulling alongside. "He agreed
to charge only twenty dollars for putting you ashore. Said he'd have
made it twenty-five had it been a man. He's a pirate, mark me, and he
will surely hang some day. Twenty dollars for a half-hour's work!
Think of it!"

"Easy, sport! Easy!" cautioned the fellow in question, at the same
time making an awkward landing and dropping one of his oars over-side.
"You've no call to be flingin' names about," he added, defiantly,
wringing out his shirt-sleeve, wet from rescue of the oar.

"You've got good ears, my man," began the first officer.

"And a quick fist," the other snapped in.

"And a ready tongue."

"Need it in my business. No gettin' 'long without it among you
sea-sharks. Pirate, am I? And you with a thousand passengers packed
like sardines! Charge 'em double first-class passage, feed 'em
steerage grub, and bunk 'em worse 'n pigs! Pirate, eh! Me?"

A red-faced man thrust his head over the rail above and began to bellow
lustily.

"I want my stock landed! Come up here, Mr. Thurston! Now! Right
away! Fifty cayuses of | mine eating their heads off in this dirty
kennel of yours, and it'll be a sick time you'll have if you don't
hustle them ashore as fast as God'll let you! I'm losing a thousand
dollars a day, and I won't stand it! Do you hear? I won't stand it!
You've robbed me right and left from the time you cleared dock in
Seattle, and by the hinges of hell I won't stand it any more! I'll
break this company as sure as my name's Thad Ferguson! D'ye hear my
spiel? I'm Thad Ferguson, and you can't come and see me any too quick
for your health! D'ye hear?"

"Pirate; eh?" the boatman soliloquized. "Who? Me?"

Mr. Thurston waved his hand appeasingly at the red-faced man, and
turned to the girl. "I'd like to go ashore with you, and as far as the
store, but you see how busy we are. Good-by, and a lucky trip to you.
I'll tell off a couple of men at once and break out your baggage. Have
it up at the store to-morrow morning, sharp."

She took his hand lightly and stepped aboard. Her weight gave the
leaky boat a sudden lurch, and the wa