the smoke of his
pipe--may it make his eyes water, and the drops fall on the grass that
his cows eat and poison the butter that he spreads on his bread."

Though Tony remained a stranger to the beauties of this imagery, he
gathered from it the conviction that it was sufficiently anti-Corrigan
in its tendency. So, with the confidence of a fellow-conspirator, he
sat by Burney upon the stone and unfolded his plot.

It was very simple in design. Every day after dinner it was Corrigan's
habit to sleep for an hour in his bunk. At such times it was the duty
of the cook and his helper, Tony, to leave the boat so that no noise
might disturb the autocrat. The cook always spent this hour in walking
exercise. Tony's plan was this: After Corrigan should be asleep he
(Tony) and Burney would cut the mooring ropes that held the boat
to the shore. Tony lacked the nerve to do the deed alone. Then the
awkward boat would swing out into a swift current and surely overturn
against a rock there was below.

"Come on and do it," said Burney. "If the back of ye aches from the
lick he gave ye as the pit of me stomach does for the taste of a bit
of smoke, we can't cut the ropes too quick."

"All a-right," said Tony. "But better wait 'bout-a ten minute more.
Give-a Corrigan plenty time get good-a sleep."

They waited, sitting upon the stone. The rest of the men were at work
out of sight around a bend in the road. Everything would have gone
well--except, perhaps, with Corrigan, had not Tony been moved to
decorate the plot with its conventional accompaniment. He was of
dramatic blood, and perhaps he intuitively divined the appendage to
villainous machinations as prescribed by the stage. He pulled from his
shirt bosom a long, black, beautiful, venomous cigar, and handed it to
Burney.

"You like-a smoke while we wait?" he asked.

Burney clutched it and snapped off the end as a terrier bites at a
rat. He laid it to his lips like a long-lost sweetheart. When the
smoke began to draw he gave a long, deep sigh, and the bristles of his
gray-red moustache curled down over the cigar like the talons of an
eagle. Slowly the red faded from the whites of his eyes. He fixed his
gaze dreamily upon the hills across the river. The minutes came and
went.

"'Bout time to go now," said Tony. "That damn-a Corrigan he be in the
reever very quick."

Burney started out of his trance with a grunt. He turned his head and
gazed with a surprised and pained severity