ot forgotten, and gave him a horn in the side,
under the withered arm.

Several sailors carried the bleeding man aft to the captain ... who
dressed his wound with fair skill. The jockey was not so badly injured,
all things considered. The thrust had slanted and made only a flesh
wound ... which enabled the fellow to loaf on a sort of sick-leave,
during the rest of the trip.

* * * * *

The storm over, frantically we tore off the hatches again ... to find
only ten steers dead below. The rest were gasping piteously for air. It
was a day's work, heaving the dead stock overboard ... including the two
more which died of the after-effects....

When we went to look the sheep over, we found that over a third of them
had been washed overboard. The rest were huddled, in frightened,
bleating heaps, wondering perhaps what kind of an insane world it was
that they had been harried into.

* * * * *

The story of this cattleboat unfolds freshly before me again, out of the
records of memory ... the pitiful suffering of the cattle ... the lives
and daily doings of the rowdy, likeable men, who were really still
undeveloped children, and would so go down to the grave ... with their
boasting and continual vanity of small and trivial things of life.

* * * * *

All the time I was keeping a diary of my adventures ... in a large,
brown copybook, with flexible covers. I carried it, tightened away,
usually, in the lining of my coat, but occasionally I left it under the
mattress of my bunk.

Nippers observed me writing in it one day.

That night it was gone. I surmised who had taken it.

Seeking Nippers, I came upon him haltingly reading my diary aloud to an
amused circle of cattlemen, in his quarters aft.

"Give me that book back!" I demanded.

He ignored me.

"Give him a rap in the kisser, Skinny!"

I drew back, aiming a blow at Nippers. He flung the book down and was on
me like the tornado we had just run through ... he was a natural-born
fighter ... in a twinkling I was on the floor, with a black eye, a
bleeding mouth.

I flung myself to my feet, full of fury ... then something went in my
brain like the click of a camera-shutter ... I had an hallucination of
Uncle Landon, coming at me with a club....

I plumped into a corner, crouching. "Don't hit me any more ... please
don't, Uncle Lan!"

"He's gone crazy!"

"Naw, he's only