cidental nuggets he came across
while walking. We believed this.

As we drew southward the days became insufferably warm, but the nights
were glorious. Talbot and I liked to sleep on the deck; and generally
camped down up near the bitts. The old ship rolled frightfully, for she
was light in freight in order to accommodate so many passengers; and the
dark blue sea appeared to swoop up and down beneath the placid tropic
moon.

We had many long, quiet talks up there; but in them all I learned
nothing, absolutely nothing, of my companion.

"If you had broken my arm that time, I should not have taken you," he
remarked suddenly one evening.

"Shouldn't blame you," said I.

"No! I wouldn't have wanted that kind of a man," he continued, "for I
should doubt my control of him. But you gave up."

This nettled me.

"Would you have had me, or any man, brute enough to go through with it?"
I demanded.

"Well"--he hesitated--"it was agreed that it was to be _fight_, you
remember. And after all, if you had broken my arm, it would have been my
fault and not yours."

Two young fellows used occasionally to join us in our swooping, plunging
perch. They were as unlike as two men could be, and yet already they had
become firm friends. One was a slow, lank, ague-stricken individual from
somewhere in the wilds of the Great Lakes, his face lined and brown as
though carved from hardwood, his speed slow, his eyes steady with a
veiled sardonic humour. His companion was scarcely more than a boy, and
he came, I believe, from Virginia. He was a dark, eager youth, with a
mop of black shiny hair that he was always tossing back, bright glowing
eyes, a great enthusiasm of manner, and an imagination alert to catch
fire. The backwoodsman seemed attracted to the boy by this very quick
and unsophisticated bubbling of candid youth; while the boy most
evidently worshipped his older companion as a symbol of the mysterious
frontier. The Northerner was named Rogers, but was invariably known as
Yank. The Southerner had some such name as Fairfax, but was called
Johnny, and later in California, for reasons that will appear, Diamond
Jack. Yank's distinguishing feature was a long-barrelled "pea shooter"
rifle. He never moved ten feet without it.

Johnny usually did most of the talking when we were all gathered
together. Yank and I did the listening and Talbot the interpellating.
Johnny swarmed all over himself like a pickpocket, and showed us
everything h