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“We get all we pay for,” essayed the Travelling Man. “She ain’t rigged for cabin passengers, and the Captain don’t want ’em. Didn’t want to take me–except our folks had a lot of stuff aboard. Had enough passengers, he said.”

“Well, he took the widow and her two kids”–continued the Man-Who-Knew-It-All–“and they were the last to get aboard. Half the time he’s playing nurse instead of looking after his ship. Had ’em all on the bridge yesterday.”

“He had to take ’em,” protested the Travelling Man. “She was put under his charge by his owners–so one of the stewards told me.”

“Oh!–had to, did he! Yes–I’ve been there before. No use talking–this line’s got to be investigated, and I’m going to do the investigating as soon as I get ashore, and don’t you forget it! What’s your opinion?”

The Bum Actor made no reply. He had been cold and hungry too many days and nights to find fault with anything. But for the generosity of a few friends he would still be tramping the streets, sleeping where he could. Three meals a day–four, if he wanted them–and a bed in a room all to himself instead of being one in a row of ten, was heaven to him. What the Captain, or the Engineer, or the crew, or anybody else did, was of no moment, so he got back alive. As to the widow’s children, he had tried to pick up an acquaintance with them himself–especially the boy–but she had taken them away when she saw how shabby were his clothes.

The Texas Cattle Agent now spoke up. He was a tall, raw-boned man, with a red chin-whisker and red, weather-scorched face, whose clothing looked as if it had been pulled out of shape in the effort to accommodate itself to the spread of his shoulders and round of his thighs. His trousers were tucked in his boots, the straps hanging loose. He generally sat by himself in one corner of the cramped smoking-room, and seldom took part in the conversation. The Bum Actor and he had exchanged confidences the night before, and the Texan therefore felt justified in answering in his friend’s stead.

“You’re way off, friend,” he said to the Man-Who-Knew-It-All. “There ain’t nothin’ the matter with the Line, nor the ship, nor the Captain. This is my sixth trip aboard of her, and I know! They had a strike among the stevedores the day we sailed, and then, too, we’ve got a scrub lot of stokers below, and the Captain’s got to handle ’em just so. That kind gets ugly when anything happens. I had sixty head of cattle aboard here on my last trip over, and some of ’em got loose in a storm, and there was hell to pay with the crew till things got straightened out. I ain’t much on shootin’ irons, but they came handy that time. I helped and I know. Got a couple in my cabin now. Needn’t tell me nothin’ about the Captain. He’s all there when he’s wanted, and it don’t take him more’n a minute, either, to get busy.”

The door of the smoking-room opened and the object of his eulogy strolled in. He was evidently just off the bridge, for the thrash of the spray still glistened on his oilskins and on his gray, half-moon whiskers. That his word was law aboard ship, and that he enforced it in the fewest words possible, was evident in every line of his face and every tone of his voice. If he deserved an overhauling it certainly would not come from any one on board–least of all from Carhart–the Man-Who-Knew-It-All.

Loosening the thong that bound his so’wester to his chin, he slapped it twice across a chair back, the water flying in every direction, and then faced the room.

“Mr. Bonner.”

“Yes, sir,” answered the big-shouldered Texan, rising to his feet.

“I’d like to see you for a minute,” and without another word the two men left the room and made their way in silence down the wet deck to where the Chief Engineer stood.