p, Sampson?" wearily asked Casey from a bunk. "What doused you,
and what you got on Forsythe now?"

"I'll tell you in good time," responded Sampson. "I'll tell you now
about Denman. I threw all the booze overboard at his orders. Then _I_
tumbled over; and, as I can't swim, would ha' been there yet if he
hadn't jumped after me. Then we couldn't get up the side, and the woman
come with a tablecloth, that held me up until I was towed to the anchor
ladder. That's all. I just want to hear one o' you ginks say a word
about that woman that she wouldn't like to hear. That's for you all--and
for _you_, Forsythe, a little more in good time."

"Bully for the woman!" growled old Kelly. "Wonder if we treated her
right."

"We treated her as well as we knew how," said Sampson; "that is, all but
one of us. But I've promised Denman, and the woman, through him, that
they'll have a better show if we get charge again."

"Aw, forget it!" grunted Forsythe from his bunk. "She's no good. She's
been stuck on that baby since she was a kid."

Sampson went toward him, seized him by the shirt collar, and pulled him
bodily from the bunk. Then, smothering his protesting voice by a grip on
his throat, slatted him from side to side as a farmer uses a flail, and
threw him headlong against the after bulkhead and half-way into an empty
bunk. Sampson had uttered no word, and Forsythe only muttered as he
crawled back to his own bunk. But he found courage to say:

"What do you pick on me for? If you hadn't all got drunk, you wouldn't
be here."

"You mean," said Sampson, quietly, "that if you hadn't remained sober
enough to find your way into the after cabin and frighten the woman, we
wouldn't ha' been here; for that's what roused Denman."

A few oaths and growls followed this, and men sat up in their bunks,
while those that were out of their bunks stood up. Sampson sat down.

"Is that so, Sampson?" "Got that right, old man?" "Sure of it?" they
asked, and then over the hubbub of profane indignation rose Forsythe's
voice.

"Who gave you that?" he yelled. "Denman?"

"Yes--Denman," answered Sampson.

"He lied. I did nothing of the--"

"You lie yourself, you dog. You're showing on your chin the marks of
Denman's fist."

"You did that just now," answered Forsythe, fingering a small, bleeding
bruise.

"I didn't hit you. I choked you. Denman knocked you out."

"Well," answered Forsythe, forgetting the first accusation in the light
of this last,