uth lost her color.

"Oh, Daddy!" she cried, "it can't be that anything's happened to him?"

"Don't get excited, Ruth," said her father soothingly. "There may be
some explanation. I'll have the ship searched at once."

They all hurried on deck, and the captain summoned the mate and Mr.
Rogers. He told them what he feared and ordered that the ship be
searched thoroughly.

Rogers turned to obey, but the one-eyed mate, Cal Ditty, stopped him
with a gesture.

"No use," he said. "Mr. Parmalee ain't here."

"How do you know?" cried the captain.

"Because he was thrown overboard last night," was the sudden grim
answer.

Ruth gave a smothered shriek and the others gasped in amazement and
horror.

"What do you mean?" shouted the captain.

"Just what I said."

"Who threw him overboard?"

"He did," declared Ditty, pointing to Drew.

There was a moment of terrible silence as the others looked in the
direction of the mate's pointing finger.

Drew stood as though he were turned to stone. His tongue was
paralyzed. He saw consternation in the faces of Tyke and the captain.
He glimpsed the horror in the eyes of Ruth. Then, with a roar of rage,
he hurled himself at the one-eyed mate.

"You lying hound!" he shouted. "If crime's been done, _you've_
committed it."

Ditty slid back a step and met the younger man's charge with a coolness
that showed his taunt had been premeditated and that this result was
expected. As the enraged Drew closed in, the mate met him with a
frightful swing to the side of his bandaged head.

Drew's head rocked on his shoulders, and for a moment he was dazed.
Blood flowed from under the bandage, and in an instant his cheek and
neck were besmeared with it. The bucko, with the experience of long
years of rough fighting, landed a second blow before the confused Drew
could put up his defense again.

But that was the last blow Ditty did land. Drew's brain cleared
suddenly. Hot rage filled his heart. He forgot his surroundings. He
forgot that Ruth stood by to see his metamorphosis from a civilized man
into an uncivilized one. He forgot everything but the leering face of
the lying scoundrel before him, and he proceeded to change that face
into a bruised mask.

His skill and speed made the mate, with only brute force behind him,
seem like a child. Drew closed Ditty's remaining eye, split his upper
lip, puffed both his cheeks till his nose was scarcely a ridge between
them, and ende