and the kind of folks
that's aboard that yacht ain't of any account to folks like us."

The memory of some remarks which are uttered with peculiar fervor
remains with the utterer. Some time later--long after--Captain Candage
remembered that remark and informed himself that, outside of weather
predictions, he was a mighty poor prophet.

V ~ ON THE BRIDGE OF YACHT "_OLENIA_"

O the times are hard and the wages low,
Leave her, bullies, leave her!
I guess it's time for us to go,
It's time for us to leave her.
--Across the Western Ocean.

Captain Mayo was not finding responsibility his chief worry while the
_Olenia_ was making port.

It was a real mariner's job to drive her through the fog, stab the
harbor entrance, and hunt out elbow-room for her in a crowded anchorage.
But all that was in the line of the day's work. While he watched the
compass, estimated tide drift, allowed for reduced speed, and listened
for the echoes which would tell him his distance from the rocky shore,
he was engaged in the more absorbing occupation of canvassing his
personal affairs.

As the hired master of a private yacht he might have overlooked that
affront from the owner, even though it was delivered to a captain on the
bridge.

But love has a pride of its own. He had been abused like a lackey in the
hearing of Alma Marston. It was evident that the owner had not finished
the job. Mayo knew that he had merely postponed his evil moment by
sending back a reply which would undoubtedly seem like insubordination
in the judgment of a man who did not understand ship discipline and
etiquette of the sea.

It was evident that Marston intended to call him "upon the carpet" on
the quarter-deck as soon as the yacht was anchored, and proposed to
continue that insulting arraignment.

In his new pride, in the love which now made all other matters of life
so insignificant, Mayo was afraid of himself; he knew his limitations in
the matter of submission; even then he felt a hankering to walk aft
and jounce Julius Marston up and down in his hammock chair. He did not
believe he could stand calmly in the presence of Alma Marston and listen
to any unjust berating, even from her father.

He tried to put his flaming resentment out of his thoughts, but he could
not. In the end, he told himself that perhaps it was just as well! Alma
Marston must have pride of her own. She could not continue to love a man