he confessed. "My temper slips. Everyone expects it
of me, so it's all right. At least, it has been all right; I guess I've
got to stop."

"Corrie, you did not believe me in earnest?"

"No, it isn't that." He shook his head as if to shake off a vexing
thought. "I--it makes me feel like a brute to think I've been knocking
out a half-starved man and throwing him into that water because he
crawled under an old blanket in my boat for shelter. Why didn't I
question him decently? I must put on the brake, or I'll spoil something
without intending it."

Gerard opened his lips to deny the danger and recall the provocation
received, but for some reason he did not analyze, closed them without
speaking. The two stood together in silence for many moments, looking
out at the gray-green expanse of tumbling water.

"I'll be goin'," the hoarse voice of the involuntary guest said, behind
them. "Obliged for your feed."

There was a tentative quality in the statement, an attempt to carry off
easily a situation capable of unpleasant developments, a studied
ignoring of his captor's possible right to detain him. But Corrie swung
around with a face of open sunniness that shamed suspicion, his hands in
the pockets of his long overcoat.

"Good enough! Did you find what you liked, or rather, like what you
found?" he responded.

The hard face relaxed into a reluctant humor, the man looked again to
assure himself of the inquirer's seriousness.

"The best ever," he essayed social graciousness. "I ain't left much.
Your little caramels were fine."

"Caramels? Who on earth put in caramels? Armand must have lost his mind!
What kind of caramels?"

"Wrapped in tin paper, they were, in a little tin box."

"Wrapped----Holy cats, Gerard, he has eaten the concentrated bouillon
squares! They were not to eat, man; they were to be dissolved in a cup
of boiling water, to drink."

"They tasted all right. I guess they'll go. I'll be movin'."

"Go? Well, I hope so; you must have enough concentrated beef in you to
nourish an army. You are going, you say. Where to?"

"The big town."

"What are you going to do when you get there?"

The man's dissipation-dulled eyes searched the candid face of the
questioner scarcely ten years his junior, then he looked to Gerard with
a confused and reluctant unease, as he might have looked had Corrie been
a young girl whose innocence he feared to offend.

"Aw, lots of things," he evaded, with a short, embarrassed