t of the night was passed as usual, Uncle Joe at the card
tables, Tom Boyd with Patience and later mingling with the hunters and
trappers in the cabin until his eyes became heavy and threatened to
close. Leaving his friend at the table, he went to their room and in a
few moments was so fast asleep that he did not hear the merchant come
in. It seemed to him that he had barely closed his eyes when he awakened
with a start, sitting up in the berth so suddenly that he soundly
whacked his head against the ceiling. He rolled out and landed on the
floor like a cat, pistol in hand, just as his roommate groped under the
pillow for his own pistol and asked what the trouble was all about.

The sound of it seemed to fill the boat. Shouts, curses, crashes against
the thin partition located it for them as being in the next room, and
lighting a candle, the two friends, pistols in hands, cautiously opened
the door just as one of the boat's officers came running down the
passage-way with a lantern in his hand. There was a terrific crash in
the stateroom and they saw him put down the light and leap into a dark
shadow, and roll out into sight again in a tangle of legs and arms.
Other doors opened and night-shirted men poured out and filled the
passage.

The battle in the stateroom had taken an unexpected turn the moment the
officer appeared, for the door sagged suddenly, burst from its hinges
and flew across the narrow way, followed by a soaring figure, to one
leg of which Ebenezer Whittaker, bully bullwhacker of the Santa Fe
trail, was firmly fastened. After him dived his new friend, who once had
ruled a winter-bound party of his kind in Brown's hole with a high and
mighty hand. The trapper went head first into the growling pair rolling
over the floor, his liquor-stimulated zeal not permitting him to waste
valuable time in so small a matter as the identity of the combatants. He
knew that one of them was his new roommate, the other a prowling thief,
and being uncertain in the poor light as to which was which, he let the
Goddess of Chance direct his energies.

At the other end of the passage-way the boat's officer, now reinforced
by so many willing helpers that the affair was fast taking on the air of
a riot, at last managed to drag the thief's lookout from the human
tangle and hustle him into the eager hands of three of the crew, leaving
the rescuers to fight it out among themselves, which they were doing
with praiseworthy energy and im